


Something Unseen

by Ch3sh1r3Hatt3r



Series: A Clusterfuck of Fuckery [1]
Category: The Umbrella Academy (Comics), The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Abuse, Angst, Drug Use, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Mental Health Issues, Physical Abuse, Recreational Drug Use, Reginald Hargreeves’ A+ Parenting, Sibling Bonding, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-20
Updated: 2019-04-02
Packaged: 2019-11-01 12:09:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 34,433
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17866997
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ch3sh1r3Hatt3r/pseuds/Ch3sh1r3Hatt3r
Summary: Theara Hargreeves grew up as the eighth child to be adopted by Reginald Hargreeves and the seventh member of the Umbrella Academy. It was not something they cherished. Every moment spent in that house seemed to weigh down on them from the very start, and they left as soon as they could. But a murder that might actually not be a murder draws them back to the house that they left, and with it comes the news of an impending Apocalypse-With-a-Capital-A and a lot of fucked up shit.





	1. Chapter 1

October 1st. 1990.

A woman who was not pregnant four seconds ago is in labour on the filthy floor of a fifth-class dive bar with watered-down alcohol.

The baby is quiet and looks up at their mother as if shocked to be alive.

The mother cradles the baby and looks right back with those same wide eyes.

 

December 25th. 1991.

The woman who gave birth on the filthy floor of a fifth-class dive bar with watered-down alcohol gives away the baby she birthed to a man named Reginald Hargreeves.

 

The baby is two and she is told that she is a girl.

The baby is two and she is told that she is the eighth adopted child of Sir Reginald Hargreeves.

The baby is two and she is told that she is going to grow up and she is going to be special and she is going to save the world.

 

The baby is two and a half and she is just “the baby” among seven others.

The baby is two and Reginald Hargreeves begins calling the eight children he had adopted by number.

It is the order in which he acquired each of them, so the baby is now known as “Number Eight.”

 

Number Eight is three, and there is an ape with the mind of a man and a heart full of love for his charges.

Pogo is young, and he will run around the house, chasing after all eight of the small children his master had adopted but did not care for.

He watches over One as he waddles through the house, Three on his tail, both of them glued by the hip.

Two is more solitary and is yet to speak, but Pogo maintains the hope that he will say something at any time.

Four and Six, like One and Three, are two peas in the pod. They hide under tables and inside cabinets and do whatever three-year-olds do when they have absentee fathers and a humanoid ape as a caretaker.

Five is quiet and placid, dark eyes watching over the house in his own way.

Seven is lively in the way that she toddles after Pogo, never letting him out of her sight.

Eight, unlike her siblings, is yet to walk. She sits quietly, lets the others come to her on their own terms.

And they all do, one way or another. Four, and by extension Six, enjoys hanging around his last sister, and she seems to enjoy his company just as much.

Two and Eight will color together, the both of them quiet.

One and Three are not around Eight often, but when they do they seem to be contained, their energy stifled by Eight’s calm.

Five will watch Eight with narrowed eyes, but he will seek out and accept her presence all the same.

Seven in particular enjoys being around Eight. Even if they only gravitate towards each other when Pogo is in the same room, they interact like they don’t know anything else.

Pogo looks at these eight children and thinks of their futures and tries to make sure that their childhood lasts as long as he is capable of giving.

 

Eight is four and Eight has learnt to be quiet when she cries, because there is a good chance that no one will come in response to her cries.

Pogo, she knows, cares, but cannot hear her alone in her bedroom in a hollow house full to the brim with children.

Eight is four, and Eight listens to Four gloat that they’re all his number, and it’s the first time any of them can gloat in proper terms because One and Two and Three were all too young and still figuring out to form words.

In fact, Two is still struggling to form words.

Eight does not mind, and her four-year-old brain simply counts him as a spot of silence in her noisy life full of seven other siblings.

 

Eight is five, and most of her siblings are all manifesting abilities.

One, in a fit of rage, pounds a chubby fist against the floor and creates a hole.

Two, wanting what he cannot get, holds his breath in an attempt to get his way, but he never turns blue.

Three has not shown signs of any unusual behaviour, but Pogo suspects that her time will come.

Four, a lonely child, even with Six and Eight to play with, conjures imaginary friends that Pogo later learns are not so imaginary.

Five, never an active child, appears and disappears around the house faster than Pogo can comprehend.

Six, like Three, does not exhibit signs of the unusual. Pogo doesn’t not believe that all of these extraordinary abilities will pass over him, and readies himself for the day that he finally shows his powers.

Seven, screaming, makes every single window in a five-block radius rattle.

Eight, wide-eyed in the face of Seven’s fit, glows red and suddenly Seven’s screams are silenced and Eight herself is blubbering, complaining of her ringing ears before she pulses red once again and shatters all the windows within a five-block radius.

 

Eight is six, and Eight notices things.

Eight is six and Eight notices that the numbers everyone was assigned mean something to all of them, a sort of age. One, the oldest, Eight, the youngest.

Eight is six and Eight notices that Four no longer talks to his invisible friends and instead yells at them to go away as he runs to seek out Six.

Eight is six and Eight notices that Six is quiet and subdued as Dad (Hargreeves) commands him to manifest another tentacle.

Eight is six and Eight notices that the kids she watches on TV do not act like her family and that maybe her family is less of a family than them.

Eight is six and Eight notices that Dad (Hargreeves) does not love her like a father should love their children.

Eight is six and Eight notices that Dad (Hargreeves) does not love her like a father should love their children and instead loves her powers.

Eight is six and Eight notices that Dad (Hargreeves) is afraid of Seven and that Seven suddenly has no powers and that something happened to Seven.

 

Eight is six and a half and suddenly there is Grace.

Mom.

Mom was created for Seven, originally (something which, Eight suspected, had to do with the numerous nannies thrown through the halls because Seven Did Not Like oatmeal).

But now that Seven has no powers (and that memory is already fading from Eight’s mind, a fact buried under the relentless training that Dad (Hargreeves) has begun), Mom does not need to be at her side at all times.

Now that Seven has no powers, Mom is available to all the children.

Two gets attached quickly, and Eight sees his eyes fill with jealousy when one of them is given affection from Mom as well.

And isn’t that a funny word.

‘Given’.

It is not ‘earned’.

‘Given’ is a simple combination of letters that mean something is bestowed upon another.

‘Earned’ means that the recipient has worked for whatever they are obtaining.

‘Given’ combined with ‘affection’ without ‘earned’ is not as familiar as ‘earned’ strung together with ‘given’ and ‘affection’.

With Mom around, Eight begins to get used to the fact that ‘given’ can be tied together with ‘affection’ without ‘earned’ dogging its heels.

 

Eight is six and three quarters and Dad (Hargreeves) puts a cigarette out on her skin.

“Absorb the energy!” he barks.

Eight’s bottom lip trembles, and the skin around the area will pulse a weak shade of blueish red.

Dad (Hargreeves) frowns, relighting the cigarette.

“Faster!” he barks.

They repeat the process and Dad (Hargreeves) is never content with the results.

 

Eight is seven and she buys Four an Ouija board for their collective birthday.

They spend four minutes straight laughing their asses off, because, really, it was _hilarious_.

Then they sober and Four looks at the Ouija board sadly and tells Eight that the people he sees are dead and they don’t like being dead and that they know he can see them, so they flock to him.

“They scare me,” Four confesses quietly, as if Dad (Hargreeves) could hear him.

‘Scared’ was not a word to use around the house unless you wanted to be on the receiving end of Dad’s (Hargreeve’s) disappointed stare. Mom and Pogo would look sad, but ultimately they would not help.

It was to make them strong, Eight recalls.

A phrase used after each and every one of Dad’s (Hargreeves’) hits had made contact with her skin.

Eight remembers how Mom comforts them, and wraps her arms around Four and pulls him close.

 

Eight is seven and a quarter and they are wearing uniforms and she Does Not Like the uniforms that they are now wearing just like Seven Did Not Like oatmeal before Mom.

Eight does not like the skirt, and she doesn’t like the way it makes her feel like she’s being reduced.

To what, she is not sure, but she does not like the skirt.

Four laughs and offers to wear it and Eight lets him and they swap bottoms until Dad (Hargreeves) notices and yells at them to go change back.

The punishment that time is harsh, so Eight keeps quiet about the uniforms and settles for frowning.

 

Eight is seven and a half and Dad (Hargreeves) is not pleased with her performance.

“Faster!” he barks, and he lays into her again.

Eight bites her lip and blinks fast to push the tears back as she glows pinkish purple, absorbing the energy behind the attacks.

 

Eight is seven and three quarters and all of a sudden Two can throw knives wherever he wants them to go.

The “training” increases tenfold, and Dad (Hargreeves) is constantly muttering about finding another set of powers for each of them.

 

Eight is eight and no one has shown any other powers, so the extra “training” begins to decrease.

 

Eight is eight and a half and she knows that no one ever helps anyone in the house.

One complies with each and every one of Dad’s (Hargreeves’) orders and does not protest against them.

Two draws into himself in the face of near everything.

Three, following One’s example, complies as well as possible.

Four is too busy with his own ghosts to help anyone fight theirs.

Five is trying to perfect his spacial shifts, because maybe then Dad (Hargreeves) will praise him and let him try time travel.

Six is wrestling with the monsters under his skin and with the monsters in the house, so he does not help.

Seven is docile, an accomplice to Dad’s (Hargeeves’) “training”. “Experiments”.

Mom is not programmed that way. It hurt a little less, knowing that she was a robot, but it hurt all the same.

Pogo was too loyal to Dad (Hargreeves) to do anything about what he did.

Eight cries herself to sleep each night and does not expect anyone to help.

 

Eight is eight and three quarters and she tries to help.

One does not need her help; he has Three and he is Dad’s (Hargreeves’) favourite.

Two does not need her help so much as her company, because he has Mom but not much else. So Eight sneaks into his room at night when Four has Six and plays with him quietly, each movement muted for fear of Dad (Hargreeves) hearing them.

Three has One.

Four has Six, but he needs more help, and that’s what Eight tries to give him. Eight sneaks into his room at night when he needs her and holds him as he cries himself to sleep. She has Mom help her buy him a lamp and promises that it will keep the dead away. It doesn’t, but Four smiles and thanks her anyways and they fall asleep together.

Five shuns Eight’s help when she offers it openly, so she does not push.

Six has Four, but there are days when Six is afraid to be around other people and Eight does her best to help him on those days. She sits outside his door and talks and talks and talks, just like Four, but Six won’t let Four near his room because he thinks he might hurt Four.

Seven is lonely, so Eight plays with her.

Eight is eight and three quarters and she cannot help any of her siblings but she tries her best.

 

Eight is nine and it is the year that Dad (and Eight has given up on separating that name from Hargreeves, because there is no difference because there is no Dad only Hargreeves, but Eight wants a Dad and Hargreeves is Dad) announces they will be going public the next year.

“Training” is increased tenfold, and then they’re all suddenly on a mission and Eight gets to punch someone in the face.

Eight laughs and it’s the first time that Eight has ever felt like she was part of a family.

It is strange that fighting people that are shooting at them makes Eight feel like she has someone to return to at the end of the day, but Eight is desperate and takes what she gets.

 

Eight is nine and a half and Dad orders Mom to name them because they need to have names if they go public.

Dad tells Mom to name seven of the children, and Seven looks on stoically, but Mom ends up naming seven of them.

Luther, Diego, Allison, Klaus, Five, Ben, Vanya and Theara.

Five remains Five and he does not look bothered by it and Seven (Vanya) is ecstatic and Eight (Theara) smiles and hugs Seven (Vanya) back.

 

 ~~Eight~~ Theara is nine and three quarters and ~~Three~~ Allison begins talking about boys.

 ~~Four~~ Klaus does too, and that makes Theara (Eight) wonder about Dad and that day when they swapped uniform bottoms, but she doesn’t say anything like she had back then.

 

Theara (Eight) is ten and standing on the steps to a bank and ~~Six~~ Ben is standing right beside her covered in blood and there are people cheering for them.

And then Dad comes up and introduces them all as the Umbrella Academy and Theara (Eight) feels warm inside.

 

Theara is ten and a half and she is prying Klaus’ stiff fingers back from around the neck of a clear glass bottle full of amber liquid.

“Why’d you do it?” Ben is asking Klaus, whose head is in his lap. Ben’s fingers are carding through Klaus’ hair, and that makes Theara’s stomach lurch and makes her think of the skirt, again, but she takes the bottle and puts it back on the shelf.

“They’re too loud now,” Klaus says, words slurred and quiet and hard to understand.

Ben looks pained, but he helps Theara carry their brother upstairs and onto his bed.

 

Theara is eleven and Klaus keeps on drinking.

They all know it.

 ~~One~~ Luther frowns whenever he lays eyes on his brother.

 ~~Two~~ Diego frowns exactly like his brother, but he will sometimes seek him out in the night and wrestle the alcohol from him.

Allison rolls her eyes and labels it “a phase”, because she’s the first out of all of them to start puberty so she knows everything now.

Five doesn’t care.

Ben is right there with Theara each night they find Klaus, and he cries himself to sleep when they do because he can tell that Klaus is hurting but the alcohol is hurting Klaus too. He starts sneaking into Klaus’ room more often, sleeping there in an effort to keep Klaus there with him.

 ~~Seven~~ Vanya doesn’t care either.

Mom takes to hiding the bottles more securely, but Klaus keeps on finding them.

Pogo looks at him sadly and helps Mom hide the bottles but Klaus keeps on finding them.

 

Theara is eleven and a half and Klaus steals medicine from the cabinets.

She doesn’t notice until Diego is down with the flu and they can’t find any of the cough medicine, except all of a sudden it’s under Klaus’ bed and it’s empty and Klaus is grinning dopily at her.

Ben’s face falls when she tells him, and Theara tells Mom and Pogo to be careful with the medicine now too.

Klaus keeps on finding that too, but he grins and tells Ben and Theara that the ghosts aren’t always there anymore, and Theara thinks of seven and a half years of holding Klaus as he cries himself to sleep and suddenly she isn’t sure what she’s doing.

Ben’s face is blank, but Theara reads his conflict and they tell Pogo and Mom but they don’t do anything except keep hiding the medicine and the alcohol.

 

Theara is twelve and Diego and Luther are always fighting.

She doesn’t like it.

The yelling.

It hurts her ears, and after the first few times they stopped doing it while she was in the room, so she can’t absorb the sound.

She wishes that she could absorb the charged emotional energy in the air, but that’s a type of energy that she has no control over.

 

Theara is twelve and a half and Allison is talking about boys even more than when she was nine and Theara is kinda tired of it.

Sometimes she thinks there’s something wrong with her.

She doesn’t feel anything towards anyone right now. She hasn’t felt anything towards anyone ever.

Theara decides that it’s probably because of how she lives her life that she hasn’t felt anything towards anyone.

 

Theara is twelve and three quarters and puberty is a bitch.

She hates it and she’s thinking of the skirt incident now more than ever after five years and she decides that maybe there’s something different about her like there’s something different about Klaus.

Because Klaus likes boys and he like girly things too.

But Klaus is as gross as the other boys.

But Klaus steals Allison’s make up and has Ben and Theara and occasionally Diego help him put it on.

Theara is twelve and three quarters and there is something wrong with her but she does not say anything.

 

Theara is thirteen and Klaus is still taking medicine from the cabinets and alcohol from their Dad, but he is also seeking out people who can give him weed.

The smell pollutes his room, and Theara hates it and Ben does too, but Ben and Theara keep on going to his room because if they can’t stop him then they can watch over him.

Diego complains about the smell to Theara, and Theara looks back at him sadly and tells him that there’s nothing that can be done about it.

Mom and Pogo find out and tell Dad, and Theara hears the ensuing argument from where she’s huddled outside the door.

Dad knows. Knew all along. Didn’t care. So long as Klaus was still performing well on missions.

Theara doesn’t tell anyone that the reason Klaus was performing well on missions was because he was hardly ever needed for them and stayed in the back until the last moment, and slips away.

 

Theara is thirteen and a half and Klaus goes missing for a week.

Dad is gone too, and when asked Mom and Pogo say that he’s on a business trip and Klaus was accompanying him.

Theara gets a sick feeling in her stomach and Ben gets a dark look on his face.

The others do not care.

 

Theara is thirteen and a half and Klaus comes back trembling and terrified and her heart breaks for him.

Ben takes his arm and they disappear into Klaus’ room for the night. Theara does not follow them, because it is not her place and again she thinks about the skirt and how maybe that wasn’t an isolated incident.

 

Theara is thirteen and three quarters and Five disappears.

Nobody cries. Nobody mourns him.

Dad is irritated that Five never comes back, but he does not try to find him.

None of them do.

Theara wants to, but slaps herself with the cold, hard truth whenever she thinks about it.

 _It’s a big world_ , she reminds herself. _Five can teleport. You’re never going to find him. You’re_ useless _._

Theara talks to Klaus in the mornings before he has a chance to go down and put away another bottle of whatever alcohol he finds and asks him about Five.

Klaus tells Theara that Five has never appeared to him, and hope swells in Theara’s chest as she remembers what Five had been yelling about the morning he had disappeared.

Time travel.

That’s what he had wanted.

Theara begins hunting down every single book that might offer her insight on the concept and settles down to start reading with Ben.

 

Theara is fourteen and Allison begins to date boys and even quiet little Vanya is talking about a few she sees around.

It’s strange, because now that they’re fourteen they allowed out and about more than they were previously.

Theara does not care, because Klaus has been taking pills alongside the alcohol and the weed and Ben has this fragile look around him that says he might break.

 

Theara is fourteen and a half and Diego gets his first girlfriend.

Allison smiles and asks for double dates, citing that it would be “so cute”.

Diego grumbles about it to Theara, but concedes, and lets Allison drag him along for a double date with her own boyfriend.

Theara smiles and grins and waves them off but she thinks about the skirt and goes to Klaus and Ben to talk.

It’s not a particularly enlightening talk, but they do plan to go to the library the next time they go out and use the computer there, because this is not something they want to do in the same house as Dad.

 

Theara is fourteen and a half and she has something to call Klaus.

Gay.

She’d tried it on her own tongue a few times, and the word seemed to slot right in alongside everything else she knew about Klaus.

There are other things besides gay out there, and because they didn’t have time to go through them all they’d printed out sheets and sheets of information and stashed it under Theara’s bed.

She’s confused, because what they had managed to get through was unfamiliar but made sense, and it was messing with her head.

Diego notices, and maybe Theara’s helping had been paying off, because he asks.

And maybe Theara was so busy helping others that she doesn’t want people to help her that she says there’s nothing going on.

She’s _fine._

 

Theara is fourteen and three quarters and there’s a lot going on.

Klaus is popping pills left and right and more often than not he falls asleep with a bottle of Dad’s alcohol in hand.

Ben and Theara are constantly on his case about it, but Klaus says ghosts and all of a sudden they feel like they’re in the wrong.

Theara reads through the things they printed out at the library over and over and thinks a lot.

She tells Diego first, because Diego is not afraid to speak his mind and Klaus is high and stoned at the same time and Ben is with Klaus.

She shows him the things they’d printed out and Diego reads them over and rereads the few things Theara had circled and thinks for a few minutes.

Then he shrugs and says that if they have superpowers, then it shouldn’t be that hard to believe that Klaus is a boy even if he likes things people call girly and likes other boys at the same time. Diego says that it’s easy to believe that maybe the skirt thing was not an isolated incident and that if Theara felt strange being just a girl then she did.

Theara’s eyes cloud with tears and she hugs Diego tight and tells him that she loves him and it’s the first time anyone has ever said that to anyone in this house.

Diego does not respond, but he hugs back and really that’s the best Theara could ask for.

 

Theara is fifteen and she goes out and meets a guy called Braylin and after five minutes of laughing at each other’s stupid names, they eventually settle on meeting up at a club not a few blocks down from the Academy.

It’s nice, being there, and Braylin keeps on getting them drinks until they’re both tipsy and giggling and using each other to hold themselves up.

They share their first times that night, and in the morning when they wake up, Theara does not feel. At least, she doesn’t feel like she should feel, she thinks.

Braylin smiles softly and leans over to kiss her and she lays a hand on his chest and pushes him back. He lets her move him, a small frown on his face.

“Was it not good?” he asks. “Do you regret it?”

Yes. And no.

Theara does not regret having sex, and it felt good, there’s no denying it, but Theara also reckons that she can feel good without having sex. In fact, sex is not something she feels like she needs to get that happy high she had last night.

She tells Braylin so and he looks thoughtful, brow furrowed and mouth downturned into a cute little frown.

She leans forward to peck him on the lips, and he laughs, face relaxing.

The two decide not to deal with it quite yet and enjoy the morning lying in each other’s arms.

 

Theara is fifteen and a half and Braylin is sweet and kind and thoughtful and amazing and makes Theara feel special and he is not someone that they want to date.

They tell him so, and like he had when they’d had sex for the very first time, Braylin stops and thinks.

He shrugs and holds his arms out and offers friendship and Theara smiles and accepts.

 

Theara is fifteen and three quarters and “training” has only gotten more intense the older they got.

Dad still calls them “she”, and so does everyone but Diego, Klaus, Ben and Mom and even if Theara feels like jumping out of their skin ever time they hear that word, they don’t.

The bruises are less now that Theara must be ready for missions, but Dad reverts back to cigarette burns.

He brings in a chalkboard and makes Theara take her nails across it and absorb and release the energy until the sound is loud, so loud.

He throws things at her and has her suck the energy out of them before they get within a set distance of her, and then she has to put that energy back before the object drops.

He has her walk off of things and expel the energy she creates as she falls and makes her figure out how to slow her falls by herself.

Theara is bruised and battered but not all of those bruises are physical.

 

Theara is nearly sixteen and Klaus sells the Ouija board they’d gotten him nine years ago.

He’s swallowing down little blue pills not a day later, so it’s not hard to make connections as to why.

Theara isn’t even angry at this point, just tired.

She no longer hears him during the nights, because Dad has soundproofed all of their rooms so none of them can hear each other scream.

Luther’s entire body trembles with effort whenever he moves, all energy spent on the “training” that Dad has them all doing.

Diego’s palms are covered in bandages, which conceal blisters and small nicks and cuts from his knives.

Allison’s voice is raw and raspy in the mornings.

Theara knows that every time Klaus closes his eyes he is back in whatever hell Dad had kept him in that one week when they were thirteen.

Ben’s skin shifts and bubbles, a flimsy prison to the monsters beneath his skin, and Theara is just about ready to break down and cry when she notices the careful cuts on his arms, as if he’d tried to remove the monsters himself.

Vanya is distant and untouchable to the rest of them, put on a pedestal of envy because she is not being “trained”. She is helping with the “training”, and all that ever happens to her is Dad telling her that she can’t do things because she’s normal.

And Theara themself… Well. They’re one of the disappointment children. They can’t seem to do anything _right_ with Dad.

 

Theara is sixteen and they are crying in their room as they wish that everything could be normal.

Klaus and Ben are perched on their bed, Klaus’ arms wound tight around their shoulders, and if it weren’t for the familiar scent of their brother, Theara would be panicking.

Braylin sneaks in through the window that night, Klaus and Ben having left it open for him, and Theara cries in his arms too.

Diego arrives in the morning and Braylin leaves and Diego wraps Theara in his own arms and asks what happened.

Theara’s voice leaves them, and they shake their head as their entire body begins to tremble at the reminder.

Diego lets it go.

Theara showers and rests their head against the wall and cries silently, shoulders shaking and entire body vibrating with their sorrow.

There are bruises in the shapes of fingers on their waist and their lower body hurts something fierce.

Theara gets dressed and hides the marks and keeps on going like a wind up toy.

 

Theara is sixteen and a quarter and they start thinking about leaving like Five did (but not exactly, since they still have those books and have read them back to back and don’t want to let go of that idea).

They tell Klaus and Ben and Diego and the three boys don’t like it but all of them remember how Theara was when they were newly sixteen and they agree to help.

Theara gets in touch with Braylin, and he brings his laptop over.

Klaus, Ben, Diego, Braylin and Theara crowd around the small screen and look through apartments and schools and jobs until one am.

Klaus is probably the most sober he’s been since he started taking pills, but he has a joint and he’s smoking up Theara’s room but they can’t bring themself to care because they’re beginning to get something solid down for when they leave.

 

Theara is sixteen and a half and they tell the rest of their siblings that they plan on leaving when they have the registration forms for a high school and a lease on an apartment.

Luther is angry and he claims that he doesn’t understand why Theara is doing it, but he calls Theara a she and Theara finally explodes and tells him and he shuts up for a little while.

Allison is sad, but Theara thinks she understands.

Vanya understands immediately, and she confesses that she’s been thinking about leaving too and maybe now that Theara is leaving she might muster up the courage to leave too.

Theara begs each and every one of their siblings to come with them, but does not tell them why they are so determined to get them to leave and that they are afraid that they might end up like them.

Each and every one of their siblings say no, and Theara’s joy at the future prospect of _freedom_ is dampened but they cannot stay in this house any longer or it will break them.

 

Theara is sixteen and three quarters and they have an apartment in their name and a job as a bartender and they are _free._

Klaus, Ben, Diego and Braylin all help them move their stuff to the apartment and they throw a house warming party of sorts.

Before Ben leaves, Theara takes him aside and they look at Klaus together for a few minutes and Ben says that he’s going to have his hands full from now on and that Theara better call.

 

Theara is seventeen and they are going to a public high school with Braylin.

After school they will walk with Braylin to the bar at which Theara now works and Braylin will do his homework and Theara will stand behind the bar and give people drinks.

The bitter smell of alcohol reminds them of Klaus, and that hurts their heart because now they remember that they lied to Klaus and told him that they were working an office job so he couldn’t visit them during their shifts.

Ben knows the truth, and so does Diego.

They both know that they can never tell Klaus, because then Klaus would have an excuse to be around so much alcohol and the pills and the weed and the pot are too much to deal with already.

 

Theara is eighteen and they have settled into their life and they are happy and they have figured out the sex thing and the love thing and they know that the people they love need to be someone they know, not someone they just met, and that they will love anyone no matter their gender.

The sex thing is more complicated, since that day when they were sixteen had shaken everything for them so it makes it hard for Theara to decide.

Sex, they eventually settle on, makes them feel good. But it is not something that they want if they’re ever in a relationship.

They tell Braylin as much, and he smiles and makes a joke and keeps on being the amazing friend that he always is.

Theara tells Ben when he’s over at the apartment, visiting, and he smiles and say that he’s happy they figured it out.

Diego is informed of the new development, and he smiles and asks if they have any more surprises for him.

Klaus is stoned to all hell when he’s told, but Theara doesn’t have any other time to tell him, so Klaus grins lazily and pulls Theara into a loose hug.

 

Theara is eighteen and a quarter and Diego has left the house.

He is happy, and he says so when they meet up at a cafe.

His apartment is near Theara’s and they consider moving in together, but ultimately decide against it because Diego is newly released and he wants space and Theara is a year out of that suffocating prison but they still need their own space.

 

Theara is eighteen and three quarters and they hear that Allison has left the Umbrella Academy in search of fame.

Ben tells Theara that Luther has drawn in on himself, and that life continues on.

Ben tells Theara that Klaus got high as a kite and claimed that it was good Allison was gone because now he could steal the clothes she left behind even if it’s anything but fine.

 

Theara is nineteen, and Ben tells them that Vanya has left.

He says that he thinks that it’s good for her, and Theara agrees as they read about Allison’s debut role.

They end up calling her right after, congratulating her, and Allison bursts into tears and confesses the belief that none of her siblings were ever going to reach out to her again after she’d left.

Theara tells her that thinking that was stupid and that even if they weren’t close growing up, they’d like to keep in touch now that they weren’t both under the thumb of Dad.

 

Theara is nineteen and a half and they have graduated high school in two and a half years via extracurricular activities and hard work.

There is no one to see them accept their diploma, because the Umbrella Academy has been called to Europe to deal with some psycho.

Theara tries not to look disappointed, but smiles sadly at Braylin as he enevelops them in a hug.

 

Theara is nineteen and three quarters and Klaus is not getting any better.

He comes over to visit, but he’s always high or stoned or drunk or all three at a time.

Theara hates it but they love their brother so they keep on letting him in no matter what state he’s in.

They want to give him a key, and it hurts to think it, but they can’t trust Klaus with a key.

Not if he keeps on doing what he’s doing.

 

Theara is twenty and Klaus keeps on coming over and sometimes he stays over a few nights.

When he comes out of the bathroom after he showers, he moves quickly, but Theara always sees the bruises on his hips and neck and chest and legs.

Theara tells Ben and he tells them in a broken, shaky voice that he knows and that he wants it to stop, but Klaus won’t.

Theara’s heart breaks for Klaus and Ben alike and they wish that Klaus would stop giving himself to strangers for money.

 

Theara is twenty-one and they attend a nearby community college in pursuit of a degree.

They are double majoring in Literature and Engineering and minoring in Physics and World Languages.

Diego, Klaus and Braylin alike claim that that is what is going to kill them, but all three of them help Theara study.

Ben reads through half of the course books with Theara, because Theara knows he wanted to go to college but couldn’t.

 

Theara is twenty-one and a half and Klaus arrives at their apartment the highest he’s ever been.

“He’s here,” Klaus laughs, high and manic. “He’s here, right here! Ben’s here, I don’t know what they’re talking about!”

Theara gets the call from Luther, and the leader of the Umbrella Academy tells Theara that Ben is dead and the funeral is in a three days.

 

Theara is twenty-one and a half, and they do not cry as their brother is lowered into the ground.

They consider absorbing energy and using it to blast the statue of a thirteen-year-old Ben down, because that was not the Ben Ben died as, it is the Ben Dad wanted Ben to be.

Young, naïve, loyal. And most importantly, malleable, easy to mold to his every whim.

Theara does not attend the wake, and Klaus follows them home and collapses on their couch with a pill in hand.

Theara does not begrudge him that, and throws a blanket over his sleeping form when he passes out.

 

Theara is twenty-two and they live with Klaus.

“It was killing me,” Klaus says. “That house _sucked_.”

Theara understands and gives Klaus a key and he does not lose it.

 

Theara is twenty-two and a half and they talk to no one.

Well.

Not no one exactly.

No one alive would be more accurate.

As high as Klaus is, Theara knows Ben and knows that their now-dead brother would haunt no one else but Klaus. And when Klaus says that Ben appears to him, then Ben appears to him.

So Theara talks to Ben.

Klaus is always there with them, but he’s mostly high or drunk or stoned or asleep, so it doesn’t matter. But Klaus is always there because if Klaus is there then Ben is there and that means that Ben can hear Theara.

Theara talks and talks and sometimes they’re afraid that Ben can’t hear them, but on Klaus’ more sober days he assures them that Ben can hear them.

 

Theara is twenty-three, and they leave books out for Ben to read.

Braylin, who comes over so often he might as well live with them, often questions why Theara has so many books lying around that they don’t read, and Theara always shrugs and doesn’t give a straight answer.

Diego, not as frequent a visitor but a visitor nonetheless, raises eyebrows but does not question it.

 

Theara is twenty-three and a half and they go to Vanya’s first concert as part of the Pluvium Orchestra.

Klaus sits beside them the entire time, and Theara sends him to the car before they talk with Vanya.

The two siblings hug, and it’s like coming up for a breath of air after being drowned.

 

Theara is twenty-three and three quarters and Allison gets married and they are one of two people in the family to receive an invitation.

Luther walks Allison down the aisle and does not make eye contact with Theara.

Theara attends the reception, and they dance with Allison once before they leave.

 

Theara is twenty-four and they come home from school to find Klaus in the bathroom, floor covered in blood.

They cannot remember calling an ambulance, and they certainly don’t remember the ride to the hospital.

All they know is that a doctor comes out of the room and tells them that Klaus is going to live and Theara nearly collapses with relief.

Diego arrives at one in the morning, and Theara doesn’t know how he found out but they are happy that he is there all the same.

Klaus wakes up and everything gets worse.

“Why can’t I touch him?” he yells, and Theara knows he’s talking about Ben.

Ben who is dead.

“What’s he talking about?” Diego asks, and all Theara can do is shake their head.

 

Theara is twenty-four and a half and they are terrified that Klaus is going to try again.

Klaus tells them that that’s not happening, that he has pills and weed and pot and alcohol to make the pain go away, but that does not abate Theara’s fear.

 

Theara is twenty-four and three quarters and Klaus is in rehab for the fifth time.

They visit him, and they tell him about life outside and he laughs whenever they tell jokes about Diego.

Klaus is released after staying clean for two months, and almost immediately after he’s out he buys pot and smokes up the apartment.

Theara sighs, but thinks about Ben and the dead people and when Klaus was thirteen and does not know what to do.

 

Theara is twenty-five and they’re reading a one-sided autobiography that paints Vanya Hargreeves as a tortured young woman, singled out among the extraordinary.

Their chest bubbles full of resentment, and Braylin lays a comforting hand on their arm as they seethe.

Klaus is in rehab, so Theara brings the book to their visitation session and slides it over the table.

Klaus returns it not five days later, a hollow look in his eyes.

 

Theara is twenty-five, and they’re yelling at Vanya.

“You weren’t the only one who was hurt in that damn house!” they scream. “Or did you forget?”

“I didn’t,” Vanya protests, a beseeching expression on her face. “Look, I just thought that writing that book would be good for me, to finally get Dad’s lies out of the shadows.”

“But you could have done that without bringing any of the others into your self-righteous quest for petty revenge!” Theara yells, flinging the book down onto the ground. “You had no fucking right to drag anyone into this! And even if you did, you don’t have any right to act like you’re the only victim! You’re just as guilty as the rest of us, Vanya fucking Hargreeves! You lived under that cursed roof with us—them—for just as long, and you did jackshit for us!”

“That’s not true!” Vanya protests.

“It damn fucking is,” Theara snaps, stepping away from their sibling with a sharp shake of their head. “Just fuck off,” Theara says hollowly, entire body deflating. “Just like everyone else already has.”

 

Theara is twenty-five and a half and Allison has a daughter who she names Claire and Theara flies out to Las Vegas to meet their niece.

She is small and fragile in Theara’s arms, and Theara is beaming at Allison.

 

Theara is twenty-six and they are graduating from college with a degree and they immediately apply for a teaching position.

The wait is long, and even Klaus notices how jittery they are as they anticipate either the rejection or acceptance.

“Relax,” he says, joint in hand while his other rests on Theara’s shoulder. “Look, I’m stoned as hell, but even I would be lucky to have you as a teacher.”

Theara rolls their eyes and reaches out to put the joint out, and Klaus squawks indignantly.

Theara laughs.

 

Theara is twenty-six and they are beaming as they read over the acceptance letter.

Klaus whoops, tilting off balance, before crashing down onto the couch, but Theara can’t bring themself to care as a smile splits their face.

The first person they call is Braylin, who whoops exactly like Klaus.

Then it’s Diego, who congratulates them quietly.

Allison is next, and she gushes about how of course Theara got the job, she’s damn smart.

 

Theara is twenty-six and three quarters and it has been ten years since they had last stepped foot in the Umbrella Academy.

Theara is twenty-six and three quarters and it has been ten years since they had last used their powers.

 

Theara is twenty-seven and they have a job as a professor and a job as a bartender that Klaus still does not know about.

The bills feel lighter, because now Theara is not mooching off of Hargeeves’ account and is now doing things for themself and it feels _great_.

 

Theara is twenty-eight, and even if they’re still mad at Vanya after three years, they have not yet missed a single one of Vanya’s concerts.

They have not not watched any of Allison’s movies.

They have met a woman named Eudora Patch that Diego is infatuated with, and they sat on his couch and ate ice cream with him when they broke up.

They have not heard from Luther for three years, and when they asked Allison (who was still the closest to Luther even if she wasn’t there anymore) Allison tells them about the moon.

Diego is a vigilante, and he comes to Theara when he is bruised and cut and hurting and if they could remember it, it would remind them of when they were three and Theara could not walk.

Theara is twenty-eight and every time Klaus gets sent to rehab (twenty-five and counting), they visit him whenever they can. The orderlies there call them by name. Theara can tell that they feel pity for them, but Theara does not pity themself.

 

Theara is twenty-nine and Dad is dead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I dunno if I made it clear in the story itself, but Theara’s power is energy absorption and release. It works on any type of energy, but the energy sometimes has adverse effects on their body. Like, if they absorb sound energy, that sound will make their ears ring if they keep it too long, or if they absorb thermal energy then their body temperature will rise or fall. Another drawback of their power is that the energy they absorb has to be released in the same form it was absorbed.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Can you hear me screaming? I’m screaming. So, after the positive feedback from the last chapter, I decided to get this chapter up as fast as I could. Sorry if it turns kinda messy towards the end, I was running out of time to post it because turns out having a social life means you have to show up to things. That would've been nice to know before I entered the world of socialization. Hope you like it and thanks for reading!

Theara finds out as they’re wiping down the bar, the TV on the other end of the room lighting up with the headline “Breaking News”, and almost everyone looks up.

At the sight of Dad’s face on the screen, Theara’s stomach flops about like a fish on land, overtaken with rage and grief and sadness, but then their eyes fall to the title underneath his picture and—

Oh.

 

Theara goes home and they don’t know how to feel.

Klaus is passed out on the couch, an arm thrown over his eyes and one leg hanging off the cushions. He’s shirtless, and Theara can see marks on his chest, ugly purple bruises standing out against his pale skin.

He’d been released from rehab only three hours ago. Theara had wanted to be there, but the shift at the bar took priority if they wanted to keep the apartment.

Theara sighs, throws their keys onto the nearest horizontal surface and says hi to Ben.

The phone rings, and when Theara picks it up it’s Allison.

“You know?” Theara asks rhetorically.

“Pogo called to tell me the funeral’s in four days,” Allison replies. “Just thought I’d warn you.”

“Warning acknowledged,” Theara says with a grimace. They glance at Klaus on the couch.

Theara’s left right eye does a funny squinting thing before relaxing again. A nervous tic that Dad hated.

“What do you think would happen if I didn’t show up?” they wonder.

Allison sucks in a breath.

“Thea, I know he was a dick, but he was your father.”

“Yeah,” Theara replies, nose scrunching up at the reminder. “Just throwing it out there.”

The truth of the matter being, they do not want to go and honor the man who did nothing but hurt them all their life.

If anything, they’re going so they have the opportunity to trash the house for the last time.

“Do you know if anyone else knows?” Allison asks, breaking the silence.

Theara shakes their head before answering.

“No. Vanya and I aren’t talking. Diego would’ve called by now.”

“Alright,” the other sighs. “I’ll see you in four days.”

“See you then, hotshot,” Theara says, and laughs as they hang up.

 

Pogo calls like Allison predicted, and it’s all Theara can do not to burst into laughter over the phone.

A ridiculous thing, really, to honour the father who was never ~~much of~~ a father. To pretend to grieve over a man they wished nothing but ill will towards.

Klaus wakes up and sees their face and makes one at them, but wanders over to see what’s going on, slipping a pill from his pocket as he does.

When Theara mouths “Pogo,” he rolls his eyes and drifts into the kitchen.

Theara wonders if he knows, then decides that he probably wouldn’t care.

They are the one to hang up on Pogo, and eventually make their way to the kitchen, where Klaus putters around making a peanut butter and marshmallow sandwich.

It makes Theara think of Vanya and smushed sandwiches that were left on the floor outside Five’s empty room.

“I hope you know that that’s going to glue your teeth together,” they inform Klaus.

Klaus waves a dismissive hand, pupils blown.

“Don’t worry, Rara. I’m invincible.”

Theara’s nose scrunches up at that.

“I told you to stop calling me that. Ben, tell him to stop calling me that.”

“He’s on my side,” Klaus says, looking remarkably smug.

Theara narrows their eyes.

 

Klaus leaves the apartment, donning a fur-lined jacket and sauntering out slightly off balance.

Diego calls almost immediately after with complaints about returning to their childhood home after eleven years of staying well away.

Theara complains right back, but then Diego begins talking about murder.

Or rather, the suspicion of Dad’s murder and a missing monocle that could tell them something.

Theara puts the phone back on the hook and wishes Klaus were here so that they would have someone to talk to who could talk back.

 

Day one before the funeral and Theara remains empty.

There are no overwhelming emotions that bubble up inside of them, just an apathetic black hole.

Braylin drops by for a cup of coffee and says “Good riddance” before leaving for his new job at the hospital.

Theara would bet anything that Braylin has been waiting his entire life to say “good riddance” on the subject of death just for the irony of a nurse saying that in regards to anyone, Hippocratic Oath and all.

 

Day two drags by just as slow and unexciting as the previous one.

Klaus returns, pockets full of pills and pot and Theara wants to flush it all down the toilet, but he looks happy on the pills so they leave it for now just like they do every time even as their heart and head hurt.

Diego calls in throughout the day, checking up on them, and Theara tells him that they’re fine even if they’re so confused about how there is an empty nothingness where they should be reacting to the news of their father’s death and potential murder.

They never expected it to happen like this.

They always imagined it as a happy occasion for them, the death of their father.

The last of their ghosts, defeated once and for all after they’d changed their last name to whatever wasn’t Hargreeves. (A recent development due to someone telling them that maybe they should do something that made them happy. And if getting rid of the name that made them feel like the old man still owned them made them happy, then that was what they did.)

It does not fill Theara with joy, but neither does it fill them with grief.

 

Day three and Theara packs a few bags.

The funeral has been planned as a quick affair, but Theara wants to check in on Mom and Pogo even if they have to endure living in that house for a few days longer.

Allison had called to tell them that she’s staying a few more days to catch up with Luther, so Theara figures they’ll stay as well.

They call the bar and the school, get a week off for mourning.

Theara wants to laugh and tell them that they can just put the days down as vacation, because there is no mourning that Theara will be doing.

Klaus has no bags to pack, and Theara complains about his lack of material possessions to Ben, even if there really is no reason to. (Theara is Klaus’ sibling, they have every right to complain about him for no reason).

Theara Does Not Think about how Klaus sold them all for the drugs he takes on the daily.

 

Day four.

Theara tells Ben that waiting one day more than they had for Ben’s funeral is bullshit and sits on trembling hands.

Klaus has remained home for the past two days, and does not leave on this one.

Braylin stops by to offer to help vandalise the coffin (or urn, Theara isn’t sure if Dad is getting buried or cremated). Theara declines on the grounds that they want to set whatever Dad is buried in on fire, and if it’s an urn then they’re going to throw it at something (or someone, depending on the situation).

Klaus does not want to come, Theara knows that much. He does not say anything about it, but they can see it in his eyes.

He’s scared, Theara realizes. And, God, they would be too if they could see the dead. In fact, they’d be scared out of their goddamn mind if even the slightest chance lingered about Dad’s ability to communicate with them from the grave.

 

The day of the funeral.

Theara tugs the door to the cab open and the dread that has been lying dormant for the last four days rears its ugly head.

Klaus presses a hand against their back and pushes lightly, and Theara quickly clambers out of the car, reaching back to grab their bag.

“Damn,” they mutter, standing on the sidewalk and looking up at the imposing building in front of them. “Never thought I’d be back.”

It’s colder than Theara had realized before, small gusts of wind chilling their stomach, which is exposed thanks to the cutoff hoodie that ends a few inches below their breastbone.

“I hate it,” Klaus says with faux cheer, striding forwards to push the gates open.

Theara grimaces and follows him in.

 

The house is echoing and empty and when Theara drops their bag by the front door the sound of it reaches every corner of the entrance hall.

They wince, and Klaus strides forwards once more, heading for the staircase across the room.

“Ta, Rara. I’m going to go find the bathroom. See if I still know my way around.”

“If you say so,” Theara replies, because they’re only in the entrance room but there are a lot of pricey things just lying around, nobody to keep a watchful eye on them now that Dad is gone.

Klaus leaves, and Theara’s feet move of their own accord, heels clicking against the floor.

The living room burns with the early-morning glow of the sun, and yet Mom stares into a fire is roaring in the fireplace with a dreamy smile.

Theara’s face, once wary, softens.

“Hey, Mom,” they say quietly, shoving their hands into their pockets as they enter the room. “Long time, no see.”

Mom turns slowly, smile still present.

“It hasn’t been that long, silly,” she says, and her head tilts as the corner of her eyes crinkle.

“I’d say thirteen years would be classified as long,” Theara replies dryly.

Mom scoffs.

“Thirteen days isn’t that long,” she says, and she turns back to the fire.

Theara’s brow furrows, and they frown, but the front door opens before they can say anything.

 

Allison is just as they remember her, but there is a weariness that comes with her poise, and Theara remembers reading about her divorce with Patrick.

She’s not dressed for a funeral, but then again, neither is Theara in their ripped black jeans, cutoff hoodie and five-inch heels.

The epitome of a grieving child, Theara is sure.

Fuck it.

The two embrace, and Theara breathes in the scent of their older-but-not-really sister.

It’s sweet, with an undercurrent of something vaguely like roses, but the scent of the house has already attached itself to her.

“How are you holding up?” Theara asks, because they know that Allison might ask them that and they want to put that off as much as possible.

“I’m fine,” Allison says, but she is not and her eyes are tired and her shoulders are tense. “You’re still living with Klaus, right?”

“Completely off-topic, but yes,” Theara replies dryly. Internally, they breathe a sigh of relief. “Why?”

“No reason, I just wondered if he was here.”

“He’s going to the bathroom,” Theara says with a meaningful look.

Allison huffs out a laugh. “I’ll go find him.”

 

Allison has disappeared up the staircase at the other end of the entrance hall and as far as Theara can tell none of their other siblings have arrived yet.

Mom remains sitting in the living room, perched on the edge of a chair and staring into the fire, hands clasped in her lap.

The words, “Thirteen days isn’t that long,” are floating around in Theara’s mind, and they wonder if Mom had been that way before Dad’s death-slash-maybe-murder or if Mom’s that way because of Dad’s death-or-murder.

A plain bronze urn with elegant handles on either side of the neck sits on the bar. It’s filled with ashes and it’s annoying Theara to no end.

Pretentious in its simplicity, they suppose.

They snort to themself, crossed arms folded on the bar to support their leaning weight.

_Dear old Dad, managing to piss me off even in death._

_What an ass._

The urge to tip it over is near-overpowering, and Theara feels obnoxiously like a cat as they glare at it.

In the entrance hall, the sound of footsteps is audible.

Theara pushes off of the bar, frowning, not having heard the door open.

“Ara?”

Theara grins, walking to the doorway of the living room to pull Diego into a hug.

The gear slung across his front presses into Theara’s half-bare front, so they pull back to examine their second sibling more thoroughly.

“Good to know that you’re just as excited to see me as ever,” Diego says.

Theara rolls their eyes, but the door opens again and this time Theara hears it.

 

Logically, Theara knew that they were going to encounter almost every one of their other siblings.

It was, after all, Dad’s funeral, and no matter how much some of them wanted to kick him up the ass, they’d all show up.

They just weren’t prepared to see Vanya again, since the last time they talked they were yelling.

Or, well, Theara was yelling.

Their right eye does the squinty thing before quickly relaxing.

Luckily, they’re saved from an awkward conversation by Allison, appearing on the staircase.

Klaus is not behind her, so Theara assumes that their sister has not yet found him.

“Vanya?” Allison asks, like she couldn’t believe her eyes.

She reaches the bottom of the staircase.

“You’re actually here.”

“Hey, Allison,” Vanya replies, seemingly not noticing Diego and Theara just inside the living room beside her.

“Hey, sis,” the other girl replies in kind. She’s smiling as she stops a few feet in front of her last sibling, leaning down to wrap Vanya in a hug.

Theara’s heart hurts, because it’s almost like a regular sisterly reunion, but it’s not because they all know that seeing each other is digging up a lot of old dirt.

“What’s she doing here?” Diego finally asks, stepping away from Theara.

Theara sighs, and Diego begins to walk away.

“You don’t belong here,” he adds, passing by the two sisters. “Not after what you did.”

And… yeah, Vanya fucked things up with almost everyone by writing that stupid autobiography, but Theara figures that she deserved to be at Dad's funeral.

He was as much of a father to her as he was to the rest of them.

Which is, to say, an absolute prick.

“You’re seriously going to do this today?” Allison asks, mirroring Theara’s sentiment as she slips her hands into her pockets and turns to watch Diego climb the stairs.

“Way to dress for the occasion, by the way,” she adds when Diego offers no response.

“Least I’m wearing black.”

Silently mourning the lack of dramatic exits for the last thirteen years, Theara steps into the entrance hall.

“Van,” they say, nodding curtly.

Vanya’s mouth opens and closes at the familiar nickname, but Theara hurries past her like Diego.

 

The kitchen is empty, and Theara feels strange taking candy.

They’d left before they’d had free reign, and they can’t help but look over their shoulder as they pop an M&M into their mouth.

Shaking their head at themself, they lean against the counter and survey the room with haunted eyes.

It’s much smaller than they remember it, but that’s probably because they’ve grown in the thirteen years since they left.

“Ms. Theara?”

Theara starts, hand closing into a fist and slipping behind their back guiltily as they turn to face Pogo.

“I haven’t been a miss in a long time,” they say, covering up their brief moment of shock.

Pogo looks vaguely troubled. “Really?”

“Yeah, I thought Luther would’ve told you about how I got him to shut up about me leaving,” Theara replies.

Pogo’s troubled look turns sad, and he sighs. “I’m afraid I wasn’t as involved in your lives as I would have liked to be,” he admits.

Theara shrugs, pushing off the counter.

“Well, that was in the past, and we’re burying that all now, so hopefully everything will be better.”

Pogo sighs and does not look convinced but all he says is, “Master Klaus is in the living room.”

 

When Pogo said that Klaus was in the living room, he failed to mention that Klaus was sprawled on the couch, shirtless, and wearing a skirt that Theara is 99% sure belongs to Allison.

There is, they notice, a lack of valuables about him.

Mom is gone as well.

“Allison made him put it all back, didn’t he?” Theara asks, looking down at their brother with a grin.

Klaus grunts, but doesn’t offer a direct reply, because the phrasing of the question meant that it was directed at someone who could not respond.

“He’s laughing at me,” Klaus whines. “Stop it.”

Theara snickers, bending down to shove Klaus’ legs off the couch to make room for themself.

“And it was Luther,” Klaus adds, waving a hand in Theara’s direction, “not Allison.”

Theara hums, placing Klaus’ legs on top of theirs.

“Have you started on that new book I got you?” they ask. “I saw it in a shop the way home and figured you’d like it. Dragons and everything.”

“Dragons?” a dubious voice asks from the doorway of the living room.

Theara tips their head back to look Luther in the eye and says the first thing that comes to mind.

“You’re fucking massive.”

Klaus cackles, and Luther looks vaguely unimpressed himself.

Theara’s mouth twists into a frown, and they push Klaus off of the couch.

He lands on the floor, still laughing, but picks himself up to head towards the bar.

 

If Theara had to define the energy in the room in one word, they wouldn’t take a second to label it “awkward.”

Luther had sat down, and Theara had vacated the couch opposite of him when he had, leaving it free for Vanya.

Allison has arrived behind Vanya, Diego not a few minutes after them, and they’d taken residence in the two chairs beside the fireplace.

Klaus is at the bar making himself another drink, Theara watching him with a put-upon expression.

Nobody is saying anything.

Allison had taken Klaus up on his offer of a drink.

Theara counts the seconds in their head, glaring at the urn.

Finally, finally, Luther clears his throat.

Theara twists around in their seat to watch him stand up.

“Um, I guess we should get this started,” he says.

Theara’s mind conjures up images of a ten-year-old Luther, newly appointed leader of the Academy, fumbling and unsure.

They frown.

“So, I figured we could have a sort of memorial service in the courtyard at sundown. Say a few words. Just at Dad’s favourite spot.”

“Dad had a favourite spot?”

And Theara feels Allison’s skeptical tone, because it’s hard to imagine Dad ever loving something that wasn’t his research or himself.

“Yeah, you know, under the oak tree.” Klaus finishes up his drink and walks over to the rest, cigarette in hand.

Theara considers following him, but decides against it when Vanya’s brown hair reminds them of countless past arguments.

“I used to sit out there all the time,” Luther adds. “None of you ever did it?”

“Will there be refreshments?” Klaus interrupts, moving stand behind the coffee table in between the two couches. “Tea? Scones? Cucumber sandwiches are always a winner.”

“Wh—no, put that out, you know Dad didn’t allow smoking in here.”

Klaus sets his drink down on a side table, moving his cigarette to his mouth where he holds it between his lips.

“Is that my skirt?” Allison demands.

“What?” Klaus asks innocently, word slightly distorted due to the cigarette. He looks down. “Oh, yeah. I found it in your room. It’s a little dated, but, it’s very breathy on the” —he gestures down— “bits.”

“Listen up,” Luther says commandingly. “There’s still some important things we need to discuss, alright?”

Klaus rolls his eyes.

“Like what?” Diego asks.

“Like the way he died,” Luther says irately.

“And here we go,” Diego mutters.

Theara cocks an eyebrow, because a few days ago, Diego thought that Dad was murdered. But now that he's not backing the idea, Theara rests assured in the fact that Dad had, in fact, died of heart failure.

Diego was, if anything, thorough.

Klaus sits down beside Vanya.

“But I don’t understand, I thought they said it was a heart attack?” Vanya asks.

“Yeah, according to the coroner,” Luther replies.

“Well, wouldn’t they know?”

“Theoretically.”

“Theoretically?” Allison interjects.

“Look, I’m just saying, at the very least, something happened,” Luther says. Intensity is building behind his words, and Theara barely resists rolling their eyes. “Look, the last time I talked to Dad, he sounded strange.”

Klaus’ head tips back.

“Ahh, help me please!” he says through a mouthful of whatever mixture he’d created for himself.

“Strange how?” Allison asks.

“He sounded on edge,” Luther says. “Told me I should be careful who to trust.”

Theara rolls their eyes to the heavens discreetly.

“He was a paranoid old man who was starting to lose all that was left of his marbles,” Diego counters, standing.

“No, he must have known something was going to happen,” Luther insists.

The first two siblings out of eight look at each other for a few long seconds.

Luther is the one to break the stare, turning to Klaus.

“Look, I know you don’t like to do it, but I need you to talk to Dad.”

Klaus scoffs as Theara’s spine goes ramrod straight, and they look at the alcohol cupboard longingly.

“I can’t just call Dad in the afterlife and be like “Dad, could you just stop playing tennis with Hitler for a moment and take a phone call,”” Klaus says, sitting forwards.

Theara purses their lips in an effort to keep in a remark about tennis being allowed in Hell.

“Since when?” Luther demands. “That’s your thing.”

“I’m not in the… right frame of mind!”

“You’re high?” Allison asks sarcastically.

Theara’s shoulders droop as they let out a heavy sigh.

“Yeah, yeah,” Klaus laughs. “I—I mean, how are you not, listening to this nonsense?”

“Well, sober up, this is important,” Luther says in his Leader Voice.

Klaus sighs again.

“Then there’s the issue of the missing monocle,” Luther continues.

“Who gives a shit about a stupid monocle?” Diego asks, annoyance loud and clear.

“Exactly,” Luther replies, and Theara feels like the only reason he let Diego open his mouth was because he knew he was going to ask that and wanted a dramatic reveal. “It’s worthless. And whoever took it, I think it was personal. Someone close to him. Some with a grudge.”

And.

Wow.

Luther is staring directly at Theara.

Diego follows his gaze, scowling murderously.

“Where are you going with this?” Klaus asks.

“Isn’t it obvious, Klaus?” Diego replies, turning to glare at Luther. “He thinks one of us killed Dad.”

Hello, two dramatic hoes with a specialty in reveals.

Luther sighs, looking around the room, and, really, this is fucking it for Theara because they can tell that Luther truly believes what Diego had just clarified.

“Look, Luther, you’re my brother and as such it is my sworn duty to call you out on your assholery,” they begin, standing up. “As such: you’ve been fucking around on the moon for four years. This is the first time all of us have been in the same room since we were sixteen, and even then we weren’t exactly the picture of a close collective sibling relationship. You don’t know any of us anymore. And as much as I’d love to send whoever did off Dad flowers if that really is what happened, I didn’t kill him. And I don’t think any of the rest did either.”

“Great. Job. Luther,” Diego says. He brushes past him before he can respond.

“You’re crazy, man,” Klaus says, standing. “Crazy.”

Theara shakes their head, making for the door.

“I’m not finished yet,” Luther protests.

“Well, sorry, I’m just going to go murder Mom, I’ll be right back,” Klaus snipes back.

Theara races up the stairs before any more can be said.

 

Theara doesn’t know where they’re going, but they don’t particularly care.

They’re stewing and they’re furious, so they let their feet carry them through the near-empty house.

It’s not so much the accusation of murdering Dad that Theara hates, it’s the implications that say that Luther believes any of them would actually kill anyone.

Like he knew them, even if he’d been on the moon for four years and had barely had any contact with any of them for the previous three. Even if all he’d ever done as a child was suck up to Dad and order the rest of them around, never done anything to get close to any of them except Allison.

It’s bullshit, and Theara really, really hoped that Luther knows it.

 

When they finally stop to breathe, Theara realizes that they’re standing in the middle of their childhood room.

Looking around, they can’t even begin to describe how this makes them feel.

It’s like stepping back in time, to a place where everything was wrong and right at the same time.

Theara remembers leaving, packing up boxes of their clothes and various other items.

The bed, they know, had been left bare, but there is a set of sheets on it and they are a pale shade of indigo. A relic from the past, Theara knows, because those had been their favourite pair of sheets, left behind due to an inconvenient laundry day.

Pushed against the wall opposite is a bookshelf, half full. All of Theara’s least-favourite books, forgotten in the move.

Running a hand along the nearby dresser, they realize that there is no trace of dust anywhere.

It’s been cleaned recently.

As if in a dream, Theara realizes that they’re sitting on the bed.

Right where they used to sit when Diego or Ben or Klaus would sneak into their room during the night.

They can almost see it, Klaus sitting cross-legged and barefoot at the foot of the bed, or maybe Diego sprawled out with his legs hanging over the edge. Ben, of course, would be sitting beside Klaus, but it was rare for all three of the boys to be in here at the same time.

Even more rare would be Vanya, because while Theara would always seek the sibling before them out during the day, the nights were something wholly different.

It’s bittersweet and heartbreaking, because remembering that is remembering a time where not everything was alright, but some of it was.

 

When Theara first hears it, they think they’re hallucinating.

But when it keeps on going no matter how much they shake their head or slap their face.

The music is pounding and insistent, and Theara’s lips move into a smile without their direction when they realize that what they’re hearing is _real._

Their hips sway gently, and their head with them.

They don’t remember getting up, but the music is there, muffled through the walls but very, very real.

And.

_And Theara is fifteen, crowded into the rooftop greenhouse with six (and they wish it was all seven) of their other siblings._

_There is a record player on the floor, the music chosen by Allison, which means that it’s peppy and catchy and perfect for dancing._

_Theara is fifteen, and they have just figured out that they’re a_ they _not a_ she _like they’ve been told their entire life, and even if no one but Ben, Klaus and Diego know, they are happy and content with the fact that they know and that some of the people they love do too._

_“And watch how you play,” Tiffany sings. Vanya beams as Klaus twirls her around and around and around, and Theara thinks that maybe it’s because dancing up here in the greenhouse during recreation hours is something that she has always been included in. “They don't understand.”_

_Vanya leaves Klaus’ grasp, spinning out into Ben’s, and she laughs like everything in the world is alright._

_“Running just as fast as we can,” Tiffany continues as Luther and Allison spin each other around the greenhouse, “holding on to one another hands.”_

_Diego’s hands are on Theara’s waist, lifting them into the air, Theara’s hands resting on his shoulders._

_“And we tumble to the ground and then you say—”_

Theara’s eyes fly open, and their entire body stills mid-spin as the world through the window turns blue.

 

When Theara gets out into the courtyard, there is a patch of blue energy lighting up the area and an invisible thunderstorm overhead.

It’s rippling, almost like a pool, and through it Theara can see something that is decidedly not the other side of the courtyard.

It’s a white picket fence, but in front of it stands an aged man.

A strong wind rips through the courtyard, and it seems to be blowing through the other side, pushing the man’s hair back from his face. His hands are raised, as if pushing against something, but there is nothing in front of him except…

The courtyard and empty space.

“Stay back,” Luther warns, one arm stretching out to push Theara behind him. “It’s a temporal anomaly!”

“There’s someone coming through!” Theara yells, ignoring Luther and pushing his arm out of the way.

They advance a few steps, squinting at the energy.

It’s calling to them, like an irresistible drug.

Every part of Theara wants to reach out and absorb it, just to see how it feels.

Their hands twitch at their sides, but before they can do anything, the energy surges once, twice.

Then it disappears, folding in on itself, and a body drops out from where it once was.

Overhead, lightning flashes a few times before the skies clear.

Slowly, one by one, the rest of the Hargreeves siblings join Theara in front of the person as they stand up.

“Does anyone else see little Number Five, or is that just me?” Klaus asks.

Theara’s mouth opens and closes a few times before they give up.

In front of them, Five looks down at himself, and then back up at everyone else.

“Shit.”

“I think,” Theara says slowly, “that “What the fuck?” would be more accurate.”

 

The kitchen really is a lot smaller when five of your siblings are crowded around the table with you watching the sixth move around making himself a sandwich.

“What’s the date?” Five asks, grabbing a loaf of bread. “The _exact_ date.”

Theara checks their watch, feeling terribly blasé about this all.

“March 24th,” they reply.

“Good,” Five says, unwrapping the bread.

“So… are we going to talk about what just happened?” Luther asks.

Five doesn’t answer, laying out the bread.

Luther stands up.

“It’s been seventeen years,” he says firmly.

Five moves to stand in front of his first sibling, craning his neck to look him in the eye.

“It’s been a lot longer than that,” he says darkly.

Taking a step forwards, the air around him warps, as if sucking him in, and he vanishes.

Near the cabinets, the air warps out, and Five reappears.

Luther looks down at his feet exasperatedly.

“I haven’t missed that.”

“Where were you?” Theara asks quietly.

“The future,” Five replies, and Theara’s eyes go wide as they look at Klaus. “It’s shit, by the way,” Five adds, warping over to the table again.

“Called it!” Klaus exclaims, lifting a hand.

“Ah, should’ve listened to the old man,” Five sighs, going over to the fridge. “You know, traveling through space is one thing, traveling through time is a toss of the dice.”

In spite of it all, Theara’s eyes are drawn to the table, where Five has taken out peanut butter and marshmallows.

 _For a sandwich,_ they realize. _Just like he used to like it._

“Nice dress,” Five adds, directed at Klaus.

“Oh, well, danke,” Klaus says happily, playing with a fringe attached to the waist.

“But how did you get back?” Theara asks, leaning forwards to peer over Klaus’ shoulder.

“Well, I had to project my consciousness forward into a suspended quantum state version of myself that exists across every possible instance of time,” Five replies.

Theara rolls their eyes to the heavens and regrets asking, because fuck Five.

He’s as pretentious as they remember.

“That makes no sense,” Diego says, shaking his head.

“Well, it would if you were smart.”

Diego moves forwards aggressively, but Theara catches his arm and pulls him back.

“How long were you there?” Luther asks.

“And what do you mean you projected forwards?” Theara chips in. “If you wee in the future, wouldn’t you have to project back?”

“Twenty-five years,” Five replies. “Give or take. Time travel is complicated to a lot of people.”

Luther sits down.

“So what are you saying? You’re fifty-eight?”

“No,” Five says, an annoyed sneer working its way onto his face. “My _consciousness_ is fifty-eight. Apparently my body is now thirteen again.” He brings a completed peanut butter and marshmallow sandwich up to take a bite out of, and Theara tracks his movements with their eyes.

This whole thing is surreal, but there is a sense of elation that comes with the fact that their hunch about time travel had been correct and Five had not been dead and it was only a matter of time before he came back.

It hurts, though, knowing that that kind of thing couldn’t happen for another lost sibling.

“Wait, but how would that even work?” Vanya asks, shaking her head.

Theara looks at her now and is not reminded of past arguments but rather a younger Vanya following Five around, listening to him talk about things none of them understood.

“Dolores kept saying the equations were off,” Five replies. He’s standing off to the side of the kitchen, back turned to the others. Theara watches his shoulders shrug and his arm move up to his mouth. “Bet she’s laughing now.”

“Dolores?” Vanya asks, incredulous.

“So because your calculations are wrong, your fifty-eight-year-old mind is craving peanut butter and marshmallow sandwiches?” Theara blurts.

Five nails them with a scowl, which, wow, memories.

He picks up a newspaper lying out on the table, probably put there by Pogo.

“Guess I missed the funeral,” Five says.

“Wait, how’d you know about that?” Luther asks.

“What part of the future do you not understand,” Five replies with unwarranted but familiar sass.

It makes Theara want to strangle and hug him at the same time, which they suppose they could do if they put him in a particularly intense headlock.

“Heart failure, huh?” Five adds, still looking at the newspaper.

“Yeah.”

“No.”

“Well, nice to see nothing’s changed,” Five says, tossing the newspaper back to the table and striding away.

“That’s it?” Allison asks, turning to watch him go. “That’s all you have to say?”

“What else is there to say?” Five calls back. “Circle of life.”

The next time they see Five, Theara decides, they’re going through with the headlock.

 

It has started to rain by the time Luther calls everyone outside, and Theara is vaguely disappointed that they didn’t get to throw the urn at anyone.

It’s cold as hell now, and they regret not bringing a coat with them as they draw their shoulders in as much as possible.

Diego grins, shark-like, at them, and Theara makes a face in return, flipping him off.

Briefly, they consider drawing thermal heat from the house just behind them, but quickly dismiss the idea.

It’s been thirteen damn years since they last used their power. They’re not just going to throw that away for a little bit of heat.

Five has changed out of the oversized suit he had appeared in, now wearing an old uniform from the Academy days.

Theara looks at him and remembers the skirt and wants to punch something which is a marked improvement from how they used to think of it and want to scream.

Or not, but Theara doesn’t get paid enough for a therapist so maybe they’ll never know.

“Did something happen?” Mom asks. She’s smiling, dressed all in black, and Theara maybe wants to break down and cry now.

“Dad died,” Allison says. “Remember?”

“Oh,” Mom says. “Yes, of course.”

“Is Mom okay?” Allison asks Diego. He hadn’t brought out an umbrella, so by now he’s soaking wet.

“Yeah,” he replies, glancing over at Mom. “Yeah, she’s fine. Just needs to rest. Y’know. Recharge.”

Pogo hobbles out before anything else can be said, and Luther looks at him.

“Whenever you’re ready, dear boy,” the old ape says.

Luther’s eyes close for a brief second before he takes the lid off the urn and tips it over.

Gray ashes pour out, landing on the ground in a disappointing clump.

A laugh bubbles of Theara, unbidden, and everyone looks at them.

“Wind,” they manage to get out between giggles, “would’ve helped.”

Theara’s laughter eventually trails off, and when it does Pogo surveys everyone assembled.

“Does anyone with to speak?”

Silence.

Diego looks at his feet.

Theara tucks the handle of their umbrella under their arm and uses both hands to rub their exposed stomach.

“Very well,” Pogo says. He steps forwards a bit. “In all regards, Sir Reginald Hargreeves made me what I am today. For that alone, I shall forever be in his debt. He was my master… and my friend. And I shall miss him very much. He leaves behind a complicated legacy—”

“He was a monster,” Diego interrupts.

Klaus lets out a wheezy laugh, and Theara brings their umbrella out from under their arm.

“He was a bad person and an even worse father,” Diego continues. “The world’s better off without him.”

 _Amen_ , Theara agrees, but some of them wonders if they really believe that.

“Diego,” Allison says firmly.

“My name is Number Two,” Diego snaps. “Do you know why? Because our father couldn’t be bothered to give us actual names. He had Mom do it.”

“Would anyone like something to eat?” Mom asks, smiling prettily.

 _Like a doll,_ Theara thinks, and really that’s not far off.

“Not now, Mom, thanks,” they say out loud.

“Oh. Okay.”

“Look, if you want to pay your respects, go ahead,” Diego says. “But at least be honest about what kinda man he really was.”

“You should stop talking now,” Luther says quietly.

“You know, you of all people should be on my side here, _Number One_ ,” Diego says, turning around to face Luther.

“Can we all just chill?” Theara tries. There’s no real plea behind those words, because they can tell that Diego has been stewing all day and that Luther has obviously forgotten just how much of a dick Diego can be when he really wants a fight.

“After everything he did to you,” Diego continues. “He had to ship you a million miles away” —“Diego, stop. Talking,” Luther growls— “that’s how much he couldn’t stand the _sight_ of you.”

Luther’s hand shoots up to knock the one Diego is point with away, and he swings.

Diego ducks smoothly, coming back up and leaning back when Luther takes another go.

“Aaaand here we go,” Theara sighs.

“Boys! Stop this at once!” Pogo commands, like they’re seven years old again and just children.

Vanya takes Mom’s arm, pulling her away from the two brawling siblings, and Klaus puts his arm in front of Five and backs away.

Five bats the arm away, looking up at Klaus strangely.

“Come on, big boy!” Diego roars, backing up.

Luther draws his arm back, but Diego ducks under the punch and nails Luther in the stomach. When he doubles over, he takes the initiative and starts pummeling Luther’s back.

“Stop it!” Vanya yells.

“Hit him!” Klaus cheers.

Diego ducks under another punch as Theara considers using their umbrella as a weapon, and Pogo shakes his head.

They don’t see him leave, but when Diego is thrown over near Ben’s statue, he’s not there anymore.

Luther has Diego by the front of his jacket now, and the second boy rams his fist into the bigger one’s arm.

“Get! Off! Me!”

Each word is punctuated by a punch.

Diego twists Luther’s arm to the side and rips free of his hold, taking the other’s temporary loss of balance as an opportunity to punch him in the face.

Stumbling away, he holds up his hands in a defensive stance.

“Come on, big boy!”

Luther’s fist flies over Diego’s head and slams into Ben’s statue with so much force it causes a shockwave.

Theara lurches back for a brief second as the wave reaches them, lifting their hair off of their shoulders before settling down.

There’s an ominous creak.

Ben’s statue keels back, and when it hits the ground the impact makes the head fall off, rolling a few feet away.

There’s a moment of shocked silence.

Then Theara doubles over and _laughs_.

Allison, Vanya, Luther and Diego all stare at them in surprise, but Theara keeps on laughing.

Ben _hated_ that statue, Theara knew, because Klaus had to,d them that Ben had told him.

It gives them a content feeling of satisfaction to have it knocked down during Dad’s funeral.

Allison shakes her head and leaves, but Diego whips out a knife.

“Diego, no!” Vanya yells.

The knife has already been thrown, and Luther’s hand flies up to his arm.

He walks back inside with hurried, staggering steps, and Diego is left looking somewhere between confused and guilty.

“You never know when to stop, do you?” Vanya asks harshly.

Theara agrees with her, this time.

A fight was one thing, but knives…

“You got enough material for your sequel yet?” Diego asks, and now Theara is torn between clubbing him or Vanya with their umbrella.

“He was my father too,” is all Vanya says.

She leaves, and Diego stands there for a moment before heading over to Mom, who looks oblivious to what just happened.

“C’mon,” he mutters. “Lets go inside.”

It’s only Klaus and Theara now.

And Ben, too.

“I hope no one tries to put it back up,” Theara says out loud. “It looked stupid anyways. Like an embarrassing yearbook picture, but a statue.”

They shake their head at themself, turning away.

“We should go inside.”

Klaus stands, walking over to crouch in front of the pile of Dad’s ashes.

“I bet you’re loving this,” he says, taking a drag from his cigarette.

Theara’s face falls, and they wish they could see Ben.

“Teamwork at its best,” Klaus continues. “Just like old times.”

He plants the cigarette in the ashes and stands up.

“It’s freezing out here, how are you wearing a crop top hoodie?”

“You’re wearing a skirt,” Theara points out.

Klaus laughs, shaking his head.

“Best. Funeral. Ever.”

 

Diego is leaving, and Klaus hurries after him to snag a ride.

Theara considers staying, but decides that after that disaster of a funeral there is no way they’re staying here for the rest of the day.

Klaus is in the backseat and Diego is driving, but if Klaus is in the backseat then Ben is probably in the back with him, so Theara takes the passenger’s seat.

“Where are we going?” they ask nobody in particular.

There is no answer, so Theara resigns themself to a silent ride.

 

The docks, Theara finds, are deserted at this time of night.

Diego, it seems, prefers to utilize this desertion as time to brood.

“Yoo-hoo, Diego!” Klaus calls, opening the door. “I hate to rush you through whatever brooding moment you’re having, but c’mon man! We’re starving!”

Diego glances back, but says nothing, and Klaus retreats back into the car.

“I’m craving… eggs,” he says. “No. Wait. It’s too late for eggs. Uh… waffles. You like waffles?”

Theara sees Klaus look at the empty passenger seat beside him, and knows that he’s not talking to them.

“Everybody loves waffles even if they’re dead,” Theara says wisely.

“See!” Klaus exclaims. “They know what’s best!”

“And I know that we have a waffle iron at home, so we don’t have to go anywhere for them,” Theara adds.

Klaus pouts.

“C’mon, Rara, just a little itty bitty tiny weeny trip to the Waffle House?” he pleads. “Ben wants to go, don’t you?”

“Ben can’t speak to me and I’m not taking your word for it,” Theara replies.

“Ugh, fine,” Klaus harrumphs, throwing himself back against his seat dramatically.

The driver’s side door opens, and Diego climbs in.

“Diego, thank you for joining us, we have decided on—drum roll—waffles.”

“I’m going to drop you off at the apartment,” Diego says. “I’ve gotta get back to work.”

“What?” Klaus asks. He’s quiet, now. “Breaking balls and cracking skulls?”

“Saving lives,” Diego corrects.

Theara sighs and stretches, getting ready for a long night.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> *cringes*  
> Heeeeeeey, it’s me. I’m back. Sorry it took so long to get this up. Homework isn’t getting any less now that we’re in the middle of exams, so it took me longer to get this up.

Theara wakes in stages, a drowsy awareness coming over them like waves lapping at the sand of a beach on a calm day.

Light is turning the world behind their eyelids red, and they crack them open reluctantly.

The ceiling swims into focus, and it’s strange to be looking up at something that should be a memory from thirteen years ago.

At the apartment, quiet had been a novelty.

Be it because of Klaus’ screams, Theara’s own or just various neighbors banging about, there was little to no genuine silence one could revel in.

Here, back in this empty house, Theara wishes for something, someone, to alleviate the silent tension they feel wrapped around the room, smothering it.

Rolling onto their side and feeling like a beached whale, Theara snags their phone off of the bedside table to check for any missed messages.

There’s one from an unsaved number that Theara recognizes anyways, and when they open it up it’s from Diego.

“Hey, Ara,” he begins. “Thought I’d let you know I’m at the station. Eudora caught me poking around a shooting site. See you later.”

Theara frowns at the same time they roll their eyes, sitting up to hunch over their phone.

While thirteen years had not eradicated their iron grip on their abilities, it had eroded the perfect posture ground into them from an early age without the constant reminders from Mom or Dad.

Theara pauses.

Dad. Dead.

There is, they suppose, a bit of emotion seeping through the emotional whirlpool in their gut regarding the matter, but they’re mostly tied to the funeral.

God, that was yesterday, wasn’t it?

Everything went by so fast, and when they left it slowed down again.

The memory of making waffles in the kitchen of their apartment comes back to Theara like a dream, the journey back to the house like a memory from another person.

It is a miracle, they reckon, that they even remember getting up the stairs and tumbling into bed.

With a light shake of their head, Theara tosses their phone to one side and swings their legs out from under the covers.

 

“You’re still here?”

“I should be asking you that,” Theara grumbles, okay mood taking a dive, slinking over to the kettle.

Five leans forwards, propping his elbows up on the kitchen table and lacing his fingers.

“So you were the first one to find their balls and leave, huh?” he asks.

Theara shoots him a nasty look, turning the stove on to heat the water in the kettle.

They feel watched and judged, like they’ve done something wrong. It doesn’t sit well on their mind, so they do what they do best.

Avoid it.

“It’s, like, eight thirty-five. Can this wait until at least noon?”

Five shrugs like it all means the same to him, and Theara feels marginally better.

“Is anybody else up?” they ask, opening a few cupboards in an effort to jog their memory.

They can’t quite remember where Mom put the mugs.

“As far as I can tell, no. Even if it has been thirty-five years, I can’t remember a time when any of them ever woke up before noon on a weekend.”

“Allison gets up early for shoots sometimes,” Theara corrects absently, setting a mug on the counter.

A beat of silence.

“You kept in touch.”

The lilt of Five’s voice makes it sound almost like a question, but Theara can’t really be sure if the period implicated by the tone is really the end of the sentence.

To avoid answering it if it was a query, they start sorting through a few types of tea.

The silence lingers, and it reminds Theara too much of what it had felt like to wake up in this empty house once again, and they take a deep breath to steady themself as the kettle whistles.

Their hands remain miraculously steady as they pour the boiling hot water into the awaiting mug, adding a tea bag at random.

“If chamomile tea is something you drink in the mornings to wake yourself up, I’m disowning you,” Five informs them lightly.

Theara scowls deeply, taking a sip out of sheer stubbornness. The heat of it scorches their tongue, but they do not draw on that energy to store inside them.

Five raises an eyebrow at the lack of the telltale glow, but this time he does not comment.

 

By the time Theara next sees any of their siblings, Five has disappeared.

They’d stayed in the kitchen nursing their cup of chamomile tea, a horribly decaffeinated monstrosity, but no one had come down even after the clock had struck ten.

It grated on their nerves, because even after thirteen years they remember how Mom always came down at nine thirty sharp to make them all breakfast on weekends.

Theara, after ten fruitless minutes of battling with unwanted nostalgia, had finally given in and started up the griddle.

Which is how Luther finds them, poised over the griddle with a spatula in one hand.

“What are you making?” he asks, slow and careful, because neither of them have seen each other in person for thirteen years save for yesterday’s shitshow.

“Pancakes,” Theara replies curtly, because there’s really no reasoning behind it except for the fact that they’d made waffles the other night and didn’t want to make them again.

“Where’s Mom?”

“She never came down.”

And really, that says enough, because Luther pulls out a chair and sits down, letting the two of them simmer in awkward silence.

When Luther next speaks, Theara wishes for that smothering silence that had previously been present, because they’d been hoping to avoid this conversation when they saw everyone all at once again.

“I heard you changed your last name,” Luther says. His expression in the reflective tiles in front of them is carefully neutral, and Theara knows what that means.

“Yeah,” they reply, taking care to sound distractedly dismissive. They shove the spatula under a pancake and move it over to a stack already six tall.

“Why’d you do it?”

Theara’s shoulders stiffen.

“I think you know why.”

“But why would you turn your back on us?” Luther needles relentlessly. “None of us did.”

The corners of Theara’s mouth are dragged down into a surly scowl as they turn the griddle off before twisting to face the first sibling.

“I’ve told Vanya this, and I thought all the rest of you understood, but I see that I missed one,” they say, voice low and deceptively calm. “We all turned our fucking backs on each other every single damn day of our lives that we spent under this cursed roof. _All_ of us. It didn’t matter how we did it or why we did it or even when we did it, we all did.

“I’m not saying I’m not part of that, because I damn well know that I did, just like each and every one of you. So when I got out, I got out. I thought about the decision for twelve damn years, Luther. And when someone told me I should do whatever makes me happy, I damn well did it. I changed my name because it made me happy and made me feel like I wouldn’t always be weighed down by this stupid house and its stupid memories.

“This wasn’t turning my fucking back on you all, Luther. This was me making myself happy for once, and if it meant cutting the ropes that were keeping me tied to this house and dragging me down with it, then so fucking be it.”

Luther blinks, and now Theara is horribly reminded of how Vanya had looked when they’d finished yelling and simmered down enough to take in the entirety of what they’d let out.

Saying that thirteen years of repressed emotions had come spilling out was not a complete excuse and did not exempt them from the fact that the words they threw out hurt. And now Theara can see that hurt reflected in Luther’s face as he processes all that had been said.

He opens his mouth.

Pauses.

Theara closes their eyes tightly, before opening them and turning back to the griddle.

The air around them has suddenly grown cold.

 

“Come on, Ara, just eat a little bit,” Allison presses from Theara’s left. Theara shrugs, lacing their fingers around their fresh mug of tea.

“No, no, no,” Klaus says, tapping the table. It’s with the lit end of his newly-procured joint, and Theara hastily uses their napkin to stifle any stray sparks left by the joint. “Rara and I had a waffle night yesterday! Four whole stacks of three waffles drowned in syrup and topped with whipped cream.”

Allison sighs, but relents in the face of Klaus’ subtle-yet-joint-fueled declaration.

It is a time-honoured tradition, this, ever since Theara stopped eating as much as a thirteen-year-old.

Only Klaus knows that it was directly after a prolonged one on one training session with Dad and that Theara came out of it stick thin and starving.

“You need,” Dad had barked, “training in the aspect of chemical energy!”

Turns out drawing it from another person had been hard and near impossible. Didn’t stop Dad from trying again and again.

Eating was a challenge, a task to overcome with Theara these days.

Either they would not touch anything but tea or coffee or they would make so much food they couldn’t possibly eat it and do the impossible, inhaling it all at once as their body finally reached the point of absolute exhaustion.

There were a few occasions in which Klaus ended up being the one to hold Theara’s hair as they dry-heaved into the toilet.

Not that anyone but them and Ben knew that, of course.

Theara prefers it that way.

On their worst days, they think about Vanya’s book and how they’re so damn thankful that Vanya did not know the true extent of what had happened or else it might have ended up in those pages.

 

Klaus disappears after breakfast, and so does Allison, with a plate of pancakes for Luther.

It leaves Theara to wander around the house like a ghost, but that wandering is cut short when a certain pint-sized fifty-eight-year-old pops up in front of them.

“Doritos locos tacos Jesus!” Theara yells, fist instinctively swinging out at Five’s head.

He ducks easily, blocking their next instinctual attack.

““Doritos locos tacos?”” he repeats, unimpressed.

“Klaus told me I said “sweet Jesus” with added expletives too much, so I mixed it up,” they explain sheepishly.

Five’s eyes roll up to the ceiling, and Theara frowns.

“This morning you were talking about disowning me. What do you want?”

“You’d think being gone for sixteen years would earn me some good will,” Five replies with a raised eyebrow.

“You’re not getting any good will from me if you keep on being a shit,” Theara replies, and really it’s only because emotions are not something they can deal with appropriately at this very moment. Actually, emotions aren’t really things that they can deal with at all in general, so there’s that.

There is a clatter from downstairs, and Vanya’s voice floats up to the second floor.

“Thee? Is that you?”

Theara pauses in response to the strangely familiar nickname, because it’s been four years since they and Vanya had had that falling out and ergo four years since they’d heard anyone call them that.

“Yeah,” they finally manage to push past frozen lips. “Yeah, just Five and me.”

“Five’s with you?” Vanya asks. There’s a note of surprise in her voice that makes Theara wonder, but they edge over to look over the balcony anyways.

“Yeah, why?”

Even from the second floor, Theara can read the hesitation on the girl’s face.

“I… need to talk to him,” Vanya finally settles on.

Theara resists rolling their eyes and shoots Five a look.

“Well?”

“I was actually hoping to talk to you,” Five says stiffly.

“We did talk,” Theara points out, because they’re that kind of person and also because pissing Five off is fun and something that they will never forget how to do.

Five’s jaw clenches.

“Stay here,” he instructs woodenly. “I’ll talk to you after I talk with Vanya.”

“Sure,” Theara agrees, giving up and rolling their eyes.

Their phone buzzes in their pocket, and Five looks at them in question as they pull it out.

Theara makes a face and a shooing motion, to which Five scowls at before warping away.

“Hello?” Theara asks, bringing the phone up to their ear. They can hear Vanya and Five talking in the entryway below, but honestly they couldn’t care less.

“Hey.”

Diego.

“So I take it you got released from the station?” Theara asks dryly.

“Yeah. I was investigating a shooting at the place we used to go to as kids.”

“Griddy’s?” Theara asks, straightening up from their semi-slouch. “Wasn’t there a woman named Agnes who worked there?”

“She’s still there,” Diego replies.

Theara pauses, listening to the comforting lull of Five and Vanya’s voices below.

“Is she okay?”

It’s asked in the barest whisper, and Theara can’t even remember deciding to ask it.

There’s a pause on Diego’s end of the line.

“Yeah, she’s fine.”

Theara inhales, and there’s a question at the tip of their tongue but then Five warps into existence right in front of them and the words take a dive back down their throat.

“Hurry up,” Five says impatiently.

Theara’s mouth opens and closes, before they mutter a hurried, “Bye,” to Diego and hang up.

 

“You need me to pretend to be your mom even if I don’t identify as female,” Theara repeats flatly. “And you need Klaus to pretend to be your father and ergo married to me?”

“Yes,” Five says impatiently. “If you could both find something more formal to wear, that would be preferred.”

“What the fuck,” Klaus says, pupils blown, eyes wide and bloodshot. “Please tell me he’s kidding.”

“ _He_ is right here, andis not joking,” Five grinds out. “Now will you do it or not?”

Klaus and Theara exchange looks, and Klaus’ head lolls to one side as if to say, “You’re the sober one here.”

Theara looks up to the heavens and prays for divine intervention before they make eye contact with Five once more.

“Why do you need us to be a fake set of parents for you?” they ask, keeping their voice even.

Five’s jaw twitches.

“Because I may be fifty-eight mentally, but I look like a thirteen year old,” he says bitterly. “People don’t take me seriously anymore.”

“Or maybe it’s because you’re just a bitch in general?” Theara mumbles.

Five’s glare is sharp and cutting, but after a moment he relents.

“Okay, I may have tried getting through to the staff there by force, but still.”

“Huh,” Klaus says, bringing his joint up to take a drag. “Is little Fivey-wivey asking for help?”

“Do not make me say it,” Five grits out.

Klaus takes another drag.

“What do we get out of this?”

“I’ll pay you,” Five replies immediately, face relaxing a bit.

“How much?” Klaus asks, as shrewd as one can get when one is high as hell.

“Twenty dollars,” Five deadpans.

“You have yourself a deal, Fivey boy.”

The aforementioned thirteen-year-old-but-not-really rolls his eyes, scoffs and turns away.

“Hey, hey, what’s the cover story?” Theara calls, hurrying after him.

“What?” Five asks, pausing to turn around and face the two with a frown. “What are you talking about?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Klaus chuckles, following at a loping pace. “I mean, we were really young when we had you? Like, sixteen? Like young and” —he pauses, clasping his hands to his chest— “terribly misguided?”

“Sure,” Five says dryly.

“We met at…” Klaus pauses, thinking. “The disco.”

Theara’s mouth quirks up in a half smile.

“The sex,” they say, deadpan, “was _amazing_.”

“You’re on the ace spectrum, you don’t get to say that,” Klaus replies, waving a hand vaguely.

“Ace spectrum doesn’t immediately imply I never want to have sex,” Theara points out lightly.

Klaus nods his head with a sort of amiability that one only gets from smoking weed.

Five looks up at Theara with a frown.

“Since when did that happen?” he asks.

“What?” Theara replies, eyebrow twitching up in derisive amusement. “Me being me?”

“Vanya never wrote about it in her book,” Five says stiffly. “Forgive me for asking, your majesty.”

The last words are said snidely with a sneer, but a Theara smirks all the same.

“Bow,” they say, pointing down at the floor in front of their feet.

 

Stealing a car is a piece of cake for Five, and Theara doesn’t really want to think about how he knew how to.

Instead, they hold an expectant hand out for the keys.

“No,” Five says flatly, holding them close to his chest like a toy. “I’m driving.”

“Yeah, and that won’t get us pulled over,” Theara replies, rolling their eyes. “Look, just ‘cause I’m wearing six-inch stilettos doesn’t mean I can’t whoop your arse. Give me the damn keys.”

Five scowls, but does as told, warping into the passenger seat.

Klaus chuckled, patting Theara on the shoulder as he walks past them, stumbling slightly, to climb into the backseat.

“You’d make a wonderful parent,” he calls over his shoulder, giggling.

Theara rolls their eyes up to the garage ceiling and prays for something to hit them over the head so that they wouldn’t have to deal with this kind of shit anymore.

 

The doctor’s name is Lance, and Theara has half a mind to strangle him when they first lay eyes on the sorry man.

When he opens his mouth, that half turns into a whole.

“Like I said to your son earlier, any information about the prosthetics we build is strictly confidential,” he says. He’s using a tone that’d more condescending simper than the time-honoured “please fuck off because you’re an overbearing and demanding client that I do not want to deal with” tone that everyone working with customers has used at least once in their life. “Without the client’s consent, I simply can’t help you,’ Lance adds.

“Well, we can't get consent if you don’t give us a name,” Five hisses, hands braced again the doctor’s desk.

Theara is sitting in a chair behind him, legs crossed delicately and classy-conservative black dress arranged neatly. Klaus lounges in the chair beside them, looking largely unconcerned with whatever was going on in front of him.

“Well, that’s not my problem,” Lance says, flashing a fake smile. “Sorry. Now, there’s really nothing more I can do, so—”

“Well, what about _my_ consent?” Klaus suddenly pipes up, looking a lot more self-aware than he had a few seconds ago.

“Excuse me?”

“Who gave _you_ permission,” Klaus continues, “to lay your hands” —his voice turns dramatically tearful— “on our son?”

He points at Five, who’s looking back at the other with a faintly confused aura.

Theara quirks an eyebrow, but says nothing.

“What?”

It is, Theara muses, possibly the only time Five is going to agree with someone like Lance.

“I didn’t touch your son,” Lance adds.

“Oh, really?” Klaus challenges. “Then how did he get that swollen lip, then?”

Klaus rises to his feet as Lance opens his mouth.

“He doesn’t have a swollen—”

Klaus draws his fist back and punches Five.

Theara jumps a bit, but there is not a single flicker of sympathy or concern from them.

Dad had dealt out far worse to all of them.

“I want it,” Klaus says in a quiet tone that is demanding all the same. He curls both hands into loose fists, bracing them against the desk like Five before him. “Name, please. Now.”

“You’re _crazy_ ,” Lance says, eyes wide. He looks to Theara for help, and they simply smile.

“You got _no_ idea,” Klaus replies, shaking his head a little.

He looks down, picking up a snow globe situated on the corner of the doctor’s death.

““Peace on Earth,”” he reads. “That’s so sweet.”

The sound of glass shattering processes before Theara realizes that Klaus had smashed the globe on his own head.

Klaus grunts, letting out restrained screams of pain, entire body shuddering as he places both hands on the desk once more.

“God, that hurt.”

And yet again, Theara thinks of Dad and what he had done and a shadow passes over their face.

They keep their spine ramrod straight, trying hard to Not Think about those things.

“I’m calling security,” Lance says, picking up the phone.

He’s beginning to dial a number when Klaus reaches out to snatch the phone from his hands.

“What are you doing?”

“There’s been an assault,” Klaus says into the receiver, faux desperately, “in Mr. Big’s office, and we need security, now. Schnell!”

The last part is said in a yell, and Klaus tosses the receiver down with unexpected force.

Leaning over the desk to get closer to the doctor, Theara sees him smile.

They uncross their legs, smoothing out the skirt of their dress as they walk up to the desk, arms crossed.

“Now here’s what’s going to happen, Grant,” they begin, purposeful in their misnaming.

“It’s… Lance.”

“Am I the only one who doesn’t care?” Theara asks pleasantly. They smile. “In about sixty seconds, two security guards are going to burst through that door, and they’re going to see a whole lot of blood.”

“And they’re going go wonder, “What the hell happened?”” Klaus adds.

Klaus’ gaze flickers over to Theara, and they heave a mental sigh of exasperation. They had not expected their security guard thing to go this far.

“And when they get here, they’re going to find out that you assaulted both my husband and my child, who were only trying to protect me,” they say, layering the dramatics much more than strictly necessary. “A traumatizing experience! We were _attacked_ by a man who was going to injure me! A pregnant woman!”

The words leave their mouth, and it’s all they can do to restrain themself from bashing their head against the desk for even letting themself think those words.

By all things holy, Five better be buying drinks after this.

“You’re gonna do great in prison, Grant,” Klaus adds, leaning back. “Trust me, I’ve been there.”

Theara tries not to wince.

That had not been a happy six months for either of them.

“Little piece of chicken like you,” Klaus continues. “Oh my god, you’re gonna get passed around like a…”

He trails off, grinning.

“You’re just—you’re gonna do _great_ , that’s all I’m saying,” Klaus says with a wave of his hand.

“Jesus, you’re all sick bastards,” Lance says.

Theara glances over at Five.

He smiles.

“Thank you,” Klaus says.

He spits a piece of glass out of his mouth off to the side.

 

The room in which the files are kept isn’t really a room, more like a particularly wide hallway in which the middle resided two back to back rows of filing cabinet.

Lance hurries over to one near the middle, opening the drawer hastily and shuffling through them with clumsy fingers.

Klaus hops up onto the cabinet beside him, while Five leans up against the ones on the other side.

Theara watches Lance pull out a folder and flip it open hurriedly from beside Five, spine stick-straight and trying to project “don’t fuck with me” vibes when this is the most illegal thing they’ve done since they were seventeen and working at a bar illegally for the second year in a row.

Lance glances up at Klaus nervously, before looking back down at the papers in his hands.

“Oh,” he says, “that’s strange.”

“What?” Five asks irately.

“Uh, the eye,” Lance explains. “It hasn’t been purchased by a client yet.”

“What?” Klaus asks, echoing Five. He hops down from the cabinet. “What do you mean?”

“Well, uh, our logd day that the eye with that serial number…”

He trails off as Klaus comes to stand on the doctor’s other side.

“This can’t be right,” Lance says. “It hasn’t even been manufactured yet.” He looks at Five. “Where did you get that eye?”

Five huffs out a sigh, glancing down at his hands.

 

“Well, this is not good.”

“I was pretty good, though, right?” Klaus asks’ pushing the door open for Theara. ““Yeah. What about _my_ consent, bitch?”

Theara grins as their brother chuckles.

“It doesn’t matter,” Five snaps frustratedly.

“What?” Klaus asks, turning around to face the other. “What? What’s the big deal with this eye, anyway?”

“There is someone out there who’s going to lose an eye in the next seven days,” Five replies, voice tight with anger and words pouring out of his mouth like a waterfall. “They’re going to bring about the end of life on this Earth as we know it.”

“What?” Theara bursts out, eyes wide and mouth agape.

Five shakes his head, brushing past Klaus and Theara both.

“You don’t understand,” he mutters.

“Uh, hell yeah I do!” Theara exclaims indignantly. “You just announced an Apocalypse with a capital A like it was nothing!”

“You’re all useless,” Five snaps, turning back around and making his way to the steps of the MeriTech (which is emblazoned on the side of the building) building.

Theara blinks, and it’s really all they can do to prevent themself from physically reeling back.

“You need to lighten up, old man,” Klaus calls, seemingly unbothered.

Theara hurries to collect themself, following Five over to the steps and sitting down a good foot away.

“Hey, you know, I’ve just realized why you’re so uptight!” Klaus exclaims like he’d made the biggest discovery in the world. “You must be horny as hell!”

He laughs, coming over to sit in between Theara and Five.

“All those years by yourself,” Klaus continues. “It’s gotta screw with your head, being alone.”

And now there is a sick feeling in Theara’s stomach from something different entirely, because they can’t help but think about what could have happened to Klaus had they not offered him a place to say.

Oh, but Five’s face…

It’s knowing and sad.

It’s telling.

“Well,” he sighs, “I wasn’t alone.”

Klaus looks over at his younger-but-not-really brother.

“Oh?” he asks, like he’s in one of those high school chick flicks fishing for some juicy gossip. “Pray tell.”

“Her name was Delores,” Five says. He’s not sad or regretful, just pensive and thoughtful. “We were together for over thirty years.”

“Thirty years? Oh, wow!”

Klaus lets out a stuttering laugh.

“The longest I’ve been with someone is about…” Klaus’ cheeks puff out as he holds his breath, thinking. “I don’t know, three weeks.”

Theara stiffens, because those three weeks had been horrible for almost all parties involved.

“He did make the most fantastic _osso buco_ , though,” Klaus adds.

Five warps away, and Theara scowls at the empty space he left behind.

“It was…”

Klaus trails off, looking around.

Theara shrugs, but then a taxi drives by and there’s Five waving from the backseat.

“Hey!” Klaus yells, jumping to his feet. “Hey, hey, hey, hey, what about my money?”

“Chill,” Theara sighs, reaching out and pulling Klaus back down. “At least he didn’t take the car.”


	4. Chapter 4

Theara pulls into the garage of the Academy with a stomach full of something other than coffee or tea for once (a rare occurrence) the day after they’d left with Five and Klaus to illegally obtain records pertaining to a prosthetic eyeball.

Almost immediately after Theara puts the car into park, their phone rings.

They pick up out of habit, because it had been drilled into their brain a while ago that not answering the phone could lead to Things That Were Not Good.

“How was the funeral?” Braylin asks without preamble.

“Ever think about changing your name?” Theara retorts.

Code for “I don’t want to talk about it,” which, really, gave everything away.

“Tell Bray-Bray I say hiiii,” Klaus giggles in the backseat.

He’s holding a joint that Theara has no memory of him acquiring, but evidently it’s not his first since the hospital.

“Is that Klaus?” Braylin asks dryly.

“He says hi,” Theara replies, opening the car door.

“Tell him his favourite person in the world says hi back.”

“I thought I was his favourite person in the world?”

Theara climbs out of the car, opening the back door for Klaus to scramble out as well.

“We both know that Ben is the best out of the three of us,” Braylin says easily, like he’s talking about a regular dude, not a ghost that haunts Klaus’ every step who also happened to be his brother.

Theara hums in agreement, reaching back into the car for their purse.

“You’re off the night shift, right?” they ask.

The Apocalypse-with-a-capital-A is lurking, lurking, lurking at the back of their mind.

All of a sudden, it’s so painfully apparent that none of their siblings know anything about their life besides maybe Diego and Klaus.

And… they want it to happen. Their siblings knowing.

Because the whole… _thing_ , with Vanya’s book, and barely ten hours earlier, Luther’s _thing_ with their _name_ . They could maybe almost certainly believe that if if if they’d known, then maybe, just maybe, those _things_ wouldn’t have happened.

Even with their shitty communication skills, they could have understood.

So, with seven days according to Five, it’s vital that Allison meets one of three (four, if you count Ben, who’s dead but technically still there) people most important in their life.

“I could be, depending on whether or not there’s alcohol involved,” Braylin says slyly.

“Allison and I are probably heading out for drinks,” Theara tries.

They make a mental note to actually ask Allison as they shove the door to the kitchen open with their hip.

“I’ll be off at nine, we can meet at the bar by nine-thirty.”

“M’kay,” Theara hums, depositing their purse on the counter. Their eyes narrow as they take in the scene in front of them. “See you then.”

“Yup. Love ya, T.”

“Love you too.”

“Who was that?” Luther asks, tearing his gaze away from a plate of two eggs and a strip of bacon, arranged into a smiley face.

“Braylin,” Theara replies, deliberately not offering any context as they lock their phone.

The Apocalypse-With-a-Capital-A may be in seven days, but pettiness between siblings will forever prevail.

Ugh. They were literally just thinking about how great it would be for everyone to understand.

A crease forms between Luther’s eyebrows, but he doesn’t probe any further, most likely having learnt his lesson from the morning.

Theara quickly skirts around the dining table, pulling Klaus along with them.

“We’re going to change, and after that, why don’t we head down to this bar I know has great drinks and meet up with Braylin?” Theara suggest, directing the question-or-maybe-statement at Allison.

She blinks.

“Uh, yeah. Yeah, sure.”

Theara beams, making to round the corner, before Allison lets out a quiet exclamation.

“Wait, Thea, before we go, will you and Klaus meet the rest of us in the living room in a few hours?” She chews on her lip. “Call Diego. It’s important.”

 

An hour later, Klaus has disappeared and Theara is on the phone with Diego whilst snuggled in their comfiest set of clothes that Klaus had once dubbed their “Comfy Hobo Snuggle Outfit.”

It’s just a pair of sweats, an oversized hoodie, socks that are fuzzy as hell and their favourite beanie, but to be fair most would probably peg Theara as homeless if they wore it outside the house.

“The whole thing is weird,” Diego says, frustration leaking into his voice. “I mean, prints from a cold case decades before and casings from 1963? That’s not something that happens around here.”

“Well, Five can time travel,” Theara replies in an even tone. “Maybe he brought some things back with him?”

“Yeah,” Diego sighs. “Do you want to look into it?”

Theara hesitates, gnawing on their lip.

Their right eye squints, smoothing out again quickly.

On one hand, it made them feel all warm inside, cliche as it was, to be willingly included in Diego’s vigilantism.

On another, this isn’t just a normal run of the mill case, it has ties to the family that Theara had considered long shattered.

“I’ll see what I can do,” they say eventually. “Did you find anything else?”

“Well, the tow truck driver from yesterday is dead,” Diego huffs. “Dora found him strung up in his own garage.”

Theara winces, tucking their feet under them more securely.

“You think maybe the people who did it were the same people who shot the store up?” they suggest.

“I dunno, maybe,” Diego says. There’s a call in the background and a pause in their brother’s response. “There has been a weird increase in crime around the area.”

Another call, this one sounding more insistent.

“I’ve gotta go, Ara.”

“M’kay,” Theara hums. “Oh, but Allison needs you here in a few hours. We’re having a family meeting, I think.”

Diego snorts.

“Sure. Whatever.”

“It’s like your inner teen is coming out just for this special occasion,” Theara sighs, right eye squinting. “Look, I can tell them that you can’t come if that’s what you want.”

“No,” Diego says quickly. “I’ll be there. You think I have three hours?”

“Well, it’s almost noon so I say you’ve got two and a half, tops,” Theara replies, checking their battered old watch as their eye relaxes.

“See you then.”

The phone clicks in their ear before Theara can say their own farewell.

 

“Thea?” a familiar voice calls from outside the door. “You in there?”

“Yeah, gimme a sec,” Theara replies, kicking the covers off of their legs and rolling out of bed.

They throw the door open and smile at Allison.

“Need anything?”

“I was just wondering when you last ate,” their sister says, a delicate undertone to the obvious meaning behind her words.

“Klaus and I went for burgers last night,” Theara reassures her, leaning against the doorframe.

“So that’s where you were,” Allison says, amused smile forming in place of the careful, wary one.

“All full,” Theara agrees.

Allison’s smile soon drops, though, and she looks at her feet before looking back up at them.

“Um, Luther wants everyone down,” she says. “I know that he’s been kinda angry at you about the name change, but this is important, so I’m asking you if you can try to keep calm.”

Theara wrinkles their nose, but gives a sigh that can be classified as an agreement.

 

Theara wonders why there’s a small, outdated television sitting on the bar top for a full five minutes.

Vanya is already there, leaning against the back of the couch to face the small TV.

Klaus arrives with Diego, and then that’s everyone.

Theara pauses, blinking.

 _Five’s not here,_ they remind themself. _Not in the broad sense anymore, because Five’s back, like you always told yourself._

Not everyone.

“Where’s Five?” Theara asks out loud.

Luther’s jaw twitches.

“He was doing more important things,” he replies, and Theara thinks about the Apocalypse-With-a-Capital-A and a prosthetic eyeball.

They hum in acquiescence, crossing their arms.

Luther hesitates, eyes sweeping across the room from where he’s hovering beside the TV.

“Just… save all the questions for after,” he says quietly.

A gloved hand reaches out to press the play button.

It’s all normal, at first.

The TV is small, so half of them have to lean forwards a bit to see what’s going on.

Mom comes into Dad’s room, carrying a tray of tea.

She walks over.

Dad takes a cup.

Takes his sweet time finishing it off, leaving Mom to stand there smiling woodenly.

Finally, Dad replaces the cup with a dismissive gesture.

Mom backs away and…

Oh.

Oh, shit.

Theara’s shoulder slump, and they stretch their neck to press the crown of their head to the column that they’re leaning on.

“Do you really think Mom would hurt Dad?” Vanya finally asks, voice small and uncertain.

“You haven’t been home in a long time, Vanya,” Luther replies bluntly. “Maybe you don’t know Grace anymore.”

“If he was poisoned, it would have shown in the coroner’s report,” Diego insists, shaking his head.

His arms are crossed, shoulders tense, and Theara can tell that he’s vehemently denying this visual evidence that Mom could have killed Dad.

“Well, I don’t need a report to tell me what I can see with my own eyes,” Luther shoots back.

“Maybe all that low gravity in space messed with your vision,” the other persists, moving forwards.

Diego reaches out, hitting the rewind button and waiting for it to go back to where Dad is lying prone on the bed.

“Look closer.”

Mom is bent over Dad, hands up and obscuring his face.

“Dad has his monocle,” Diego narrates. “Mom stands up. Monocle’s gone.”

“Oh yeah,” Klaus laughs, leaning against the table pressed up behind one of the couches. He’s munching on a bag of chips, and Theara wonders where he’d gotten them because they don’t recall giving him any money.

Pushing off of the column, Theara slips past their brothers and rewinding the tape for themself.

The monocle really is gone.

“She wasn’t poisoning him,” Diego says firmly, walking away to stand by the couch. “She was taking it. To clean it.”

“Then where is it?” Luther demands. “No, I’ve searched the house, including her things.”

“That’s not weird at all,” Theara mutters, trying to remember if they’d left anything potentially embarrassing out.

They hadn’t heard Luther arrive, so that meant that he got to the Academy before Allison…

“She doesn’t have it,” Diego says, shoulders beginning to draw up to his ears.

“She doesn’t have it,” Luther repeats.

… but that doesn’t tell Theara anything about when Luther had actually done the search, though…

“That’s because I took it from her,” Diego replies, straightening up a bit as he turns to face the rest. “After the funeral.”

… so maybe—

“You’ve had the monocle this whole time?” Allison exclaims. “What the hell, Diego?”

Theara cocks an eyebrow at their brother, whose jaw clenches defensively.

“Give it to me,” Luther commands, extending one large gloved hand.

“I threw it away,” Diego says stonily.

“You what?”

“Look, I knew that if you found it on Mom, you’d lose your shit, just like you’re doing now,” Theara’s second brother scoffs.

“Diego, you son of a bitch,” Luther growls.

“Hey,” Vanya tries.

“No,” Diego snaps.

Theara’s hand shoots out as he takes a step towards their first sibling, grip tight and unyielding.

“Chill,” they say quietly, tugging him back.

“Look, I know Dad wasn’t exactly an open book,” Vanya sighs as Diego relents, “but I do remember one thing he said. Mom was, well, designed to be a caretaker, but also as a protector.”

Klaus crosses the room with a few lazy steps, leaning up against the column Theara had vacated.

“What does that mean?” Allison asks, wariness and confusion mixing together.

“She was programmed to intervene if someone's life was in jeopardy,” Vanya explains.

“Well, if her hardware it degrading, then—”

Luther pauses, licking his lips nervously.

“We need to turn her off,” Luther says firmly.

Theara blanches, hands flying up to gesticulate wildly.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, back it up, Ziggy Stardust,” they say firmly. “This is _Mom_ we’re talking about, Luther. She raised me—all of us—for sixteen years and more. We’re not just going to shove her in a closet like a toy we’ve outgrown! Sure, she’s been a little” —Theara hesitates, hands twitching about uncertainly— “absent, lately, y’know? But that doesn’t mean we can’t fix her.”

There is heat gathering in their hands, and they quickly wipe their sweaty palms on their sweatpants.

“She’s not just a vacuum cleaner you can throw in a closet,” Diego snarls in agreement. “She feels things, I’ve seen it!”

“She just stood there, Diego, and watched our father die,” Luther snaps back.

“I’m with Luther,” Allison sighs.

“Surprise, surprise,” Diego mocks.

“Shut up,” she shoots back. Her gaze shifts to Theara, and they can read the plead in her eyes.

 _Put this to rest_ , Allison is asking with her eyes. _Help me settle the issue._

“Mom is Mom,” Theara says quietly. “Maybe we can find a manual somewhere that can help us. Maybe we can ask Pogo. But why can’t we just try fixing her instead of discarding her like a broken toy?”

“That’s not an option,” Luther snaps. “We don’t even know if there is a manual.”

“So we just automatically assume there isn’t?” Theara challenges. There’s a burning ball of fire building their chest, bearing down with a weighty pressure. “We could ask Pogo. We could raid Dad’s study, because Dad isn’t here to be a dick about that anymore. But we can’t just jump to the conclusion that Mom can’t be fixed, Luther.”

“But that would take too much time,” Allison points out. “This way we take care of the problem much faster.”

“Do any of us even know how to turn Mom off with the guarantee that we’ll be able to turn her back on?” Theara insists.

“Thea, this is the quickest way with the least conflict,” Allison sighs. “Can we just lay this to rest?”

“The “least conflict” part of that statement is looking real dicey,” Diego snaps.

Luther growls, rounding on Vanya.

“You need to decide now,” he says flatly.

She blanches, mouth opening and closing soundlessly.

“I—I don’t—”

“Yeah, she shouldn’t get a vote,” Diego says dismissively, saving a hand as he turns away.

“Maybe she’d be better at handling split second decisions better if we included her in things as stupid as arguments when we were children,” Theara thinks nastily.

“I was gonna say that I agree with you and Thea!” Vanya exclaims.

“Okay, she should get a vote,” Diego says, turning back around. He looks back almost immediately, gaze trained on Klaus. “What about you, stoner boy? What do you got?”

Klaus, who has been looking down at the floor, completely out of tune with what was happening around him, looks up. A fleeting expression of surprise darts across his face, similar to the one Vanya had sported when Luther had turned to her.

(But Vanya’s was much more deer caught in the headlights look than Klaus’ genuine surprise).

The emotion is gone as quick as it had appeared, and Klaus straightens with a faux look of disinterest.

“Oh, so what?” he asks flippantly, notes of hurt fringing his indifference. “You need my help now?”

He’s directing his words half at Luther, half at the room at large.

“Oh, “Get out of the van, Klaus!” Well, welcome back to the van!”

“What van?” Allison asks, face scrunching up in confusion.

Theara mirrors her sentiment with a frown.

“What’s it gonna be, Klaus?” Luther asks curtly.

“I’m with Diego, because screw you!” Klaus snaps in a sudden burst of bitter defiance, waving a hand in Diego’s direction. “And if Ben were here, he’d agree with me!”

Theara pauses, raising an eyebrow.

Klaus hisses at an empty space off to his right.

“So that’s four?” Diego asks, holding up two fingers on each hand.

Klaus nods resolutely, eyes glazing slightly.

“To two,” Theara’s second sibling says triumphantly.

“Vote’s not final yet,” Luther insists.

“What?” Diego scoffs. “It’s four to two, Allison, there’s no turning that around.”

“Five’s not here,” she replies. “The whole family has to vote. We owe each other that.”

There are words bubbling up in Theara’s throat, words that remind them of how they think this family shattered, and they swallow those syllables, those wickedly woven sentences, back down like shards of glass.

“Right,” Luther says quickly.

Diego looks at Vanya for aid, but she shakes her head.

“No, we should wait.”

Diego’s head snaps back around to Theara, who shrugs.

“It’s pointless, but it’s not like it’s going to change anything,” they say softly.

Around them, the rest of their siblings are beginning to leave the living room.

Diego makes a sound that’s a cross between a huff and growl, but when he turns around he pauses.

Theara follows his gaze to where Mom is standing in the far corner of the living room, half-hidden by a column.

Theara shakes their head, all of the rage that had been bubbling inside of them dissipating into an empty nothingness.

“I can’t deal with this right now,” they sigh. “I’ll see you later.”

 

Allison catches Theara in the kitchen, half out of the door that leads into the narrow alley beside the Academy.

“I’m heading out,” they sigh, grabbing a set of keys off the rack, an answer to the unasked question in Allison’s cocked eyebrow. “Tell Klaus if you see him.”

Allison nods, the way her arms are crossed over her chest suggesting it’s more for comfort than anything else.

“Drinks tonight with your friend, right?”

“Since when does anyone in this family turn down a drink?” Theara snorts.

“Yeah, you’re right,” Allison laughs, glancing down at the ground before refocusing on Theara. “Do you know where you’re going?”

“For a drink,” Theara deadpans, pushing the door open. “I’ll be back by eight-forty at the very latest, you don’t have to worry.”

Allison rolls her eyes, but takes a step back.

Theara puts one foot out the door, hesitating.

“For what it’s worth, I think that you deserve to see your daughter,” they say, looking over their shoulder.

Allison’s mouth parts, but before she can say anything, Theara is gone.

 

At this time of day, Theara would have expected the streets to be much more crowded than they are now.

The lazy calm in the air grates on their nerves, makes them wish for something to do.

They think about the class that they could be teaching right now, of a too-cold lecture room filled with harried college students that Theara remembers being, of grading papers, of being _useful_.

It’s a horrible feeling, to Theara, feeling useless.

There was nothing for them to do, nothing for them to occupy themself with, and it brings back memories of feeling powerless, unable to do anything in the face of the man they called their father.

At their sides, their fingers twitch.

Only the eagle-eyed passerby would have detected the faint glow of silver surrounding Theara’s hands, warping the air around them.

If Theara had noticed, then they would have identified the silver glow as electromagnetic energy being siphoned out of the air.

 

It takes an hour, maybe two, for Theara’s feet to give up on them and lead them to a park.

Despite the long walk, they can tell that they haven’t strayed more than ten or fifteen blocks from the Academy.

The crowd clogging the sidewalks eases to a small trickle as Theara heads towards a park, eventually dwindling off into two or three lone pedestrians as they step onto a narrow brick path.

It’s quiet, almost like the sound of the city behind them have been muffled by the aura of peace the park exudes.

 

There’s a small pond in the middle of the park, and Theara subconsciously gravitates towards it.

They’d changed before heading out, and now their red-tipped nose is tucked into a wool scarf, sheltered from brisk March winds.

Their hands are curled into loose fists, shoved into the pockets of a heavy black bomber jacket that Theara doesn’t remember acquiring.

It feels odd, to be out in the open.

They don’t do it that much outside of work, because even if they’ve got a firm handle on their powers, they can’t seem to find an off switch for them.

So day in, day out, energy calls to Theara.

Right now, they pull their shoulders in closer as the energy belonging to a barking dog presses in on them, leaving just as quickly as the canine bounds away.

The water is simmering with both kinetic and potential energy, and if they didn’t know better they’d think that it was boiling.

Each and every little thing has its own unique energy that encroaches on the blurred lines of Theara’s own and its headache-inducing if endured too long.

Coming out in public, they think mournfully, was a bad idea. They’d have to sit through a few more hours of this with Allison and Braylin.

Theara sighs, stopping at the edge of the pond.

At least there’s alcohol involved.

 

The park is left behind after a quick ten-minute stroll around the very edges, and Theara finds themself itching for something to focus on in the mass of energy that is New York.

Almost without thought, the fingers of their left hand curl around the phone in their pocket, drawing out of the warm cavity as fingers dial a number from memory.

“Hey, Braylin,” Theara says, jamming their right hand deeper into their jacket, as if the extra warmth provided could make up for the chill enveloping their left.

“Hey, T,” the familiar voice replies, cheery as ever. “Anymore funerals we need to plan?”

“There will be if I don’t get out of that damn house soon,” they huff.

“Well, why’d you go in the first place?”

Theara hates that they can match Braylin’s careless shrug to the nonchalant tone.

“This—all of it, my entire family—it’s fucking with my mind,” Theara sighs. “It was all supposed to be a memory, right? But it’s not staying a memory, it’s turning into reality and I don’t know what to do.”

Waves of distress, Theara feels, should be radiating off of them. The energy in their head, normally a quiet background noise, is going haywire, and Theara is all too aware of the electrical energy pinging back and forth between neuron after neuron to create the sick butterfly feeling in their stomach.

Braylin does not respond for a good five seconds.

“I don’t know what to say,” he finally settles on. “I’m going to be completely and totally honest with you: I’ve never had those issues, and I don’t think I’ll ever have the issues that your family does. I don’t have any advice to offer, and I highly doubt anyone else in the whole wide world would have anything useful to offer on the subject. But that doesn’t matter, because you can talk it out. Maybe not with everyone, but with yourself.”

Theara huffs out a forced laugh, turning onto the street the Academy is housed on.

“Thanks,” they sigh. “You sure I don’t have to pay you for therapy?”

“Nah, it’s on the house.”

The gate is hanging open, Theara notices, slowing to a stop a few feet away from the Academy.

The door is cracked open a good few inches as well.

Pogo had always been diligent in making sure the front door had been locked.

“Hey, Braylin?” Theara says, eyes narrowing. “I think we’re gonna have to rain check on those drinks.”

“We better,” Braylin replies, not bothering to ask why because Braylin is great and doesn’t ask stupid questions. “One of my coworkers is paying me in cupcakes to get Allison Hargreeves’ autograph.”

“Bye.”

Theara locks their phone, slipping it into their pocket as they hurry forwards, pushing the door open completely.

It’s quiet.

Dead quiet, too quiet, and Theara’s hair stands on end as they take two careful steps into the Academy.

_BANG._

Theara jerks reflexively, ducking and rolling behind one of the columns that line the outer edge of the entryway.

_Bangbangbangbangbang._

It takes a moment for Theara to reorient themself, pressed flush against the column, breaths coming out in quiet, huffing gasps.

_Bangbangbangbangbang._

The gunfire is not on the ground floor. On the contrary, it seems to be coming from the second.

_Bangbangbangbangbang._

The bedrooms.

_Bangbangbangbangbang._

The gunfire stops, but Theara is scared to find out if that’s because whoever was shooting hit whatever they were shooting at or if something else had happened.

_Bangbangbangbangbang._

Another brief pause, and Theara creeps out from behind the column carefully, darting over into the living room.

_Bangbangbangbangbang._

A dark body comes flying over the railing of the second floor, crashing down onto the couch.

_Bangbangbangbangbang._

Theara yelps, ducking behind the couch near the front of the room as Diego clambers over the back to tumble down beside them.

There is a brief pause.

Diego and Theara exchange looks.

Theara’s gaze flickers over to where a portrait of Dad is riddled full of holes.

They grin as the sound of footsteps breaks the tense silence.

Diego holds his pointer finger up to his lips, shifting.

His arm bumps against the couch.

_Bangbangbangbangbang._

No rest, no reprieve.

_Bangbangbangbangbang._

Their ears _hurt_.

_Bangbangbangbangbang._

A bullet ricochets off of the fireplace, whizzing past Theara’s face.

_Bangbangbangbangbang._

Theara’s entire body shudders, and their eyes roll up into their head.

 _Bangbang… bangbang…_ bang.

Theara glows pinkish purple and the bullets are drifting now, swimming through the air lazily.

A hazy has enveloped their mind, full of half-heard snatches of whispered words.

Their body vibrates of its own volition, the glow on their skin only becoming stronger.

Their eyelids slide closed, the darkness behind them tinted pinkish purple.

“Ara!” Diego yells.

Theara can’t hear any of that.

The bullets in the air drop one by one, a convoluted take on rain.

The two people in the doorway of the living room look on in shock.

“Ara!” Diego repeats at top volume.

Theara’s body seizes up all of a sudden, a pulse of the pinkish purple light leaving them, and the bullets dropping in midair regain their energy, slamming into the floor at top speed.

Theara themself slumps over, head hitting them floor with a soft _thump._

 

Diego has known Theara all their life.

In recent years, he feels like they’ve grown closer as siblings.

Not Allison and Luther close (gross), but close in the way that normal siblings are.

He, along with Klaus and Vanya, had been aware of Theara’s aversion to actively using their powers.

This, he thinks, taking a brief moment to look at his eighth sibling's fallen form, definitely counted as active use of powers.

The gunfire has stopped, and Diego vaguely registers Luther flinging one of the attackers away.

Allison arrives not a moment later, a painful mirror image of when they were sixteen and (almost) whole, fighting crime as the Umbrella Academy.

It hurts, but that’s really nothing new.

One of the attackers has reclaimed their machine gun, and bullets are whizzing through the air.

Diego glances over at the couch that Theara is behind, but decides that leaving them where they are is the safest bet for the both of them.

He runs, losing Allison along the way, but soon finds her in the kitchen by following the sounds of gunfire.

They don’t quite manage to dispatch the attacker downstairs, but Diego notes that one of them is male and the one he had just stabbed is female.

Then everyone's upstairs again and there’s a chandelier falling from the ceiling.

Luther is also half ape, the most depressing part about that little tidbit being that it’s probably not the worst thing that’s ever happened to any of them.

Another sad (or maybe just strange) detail worth noting is that it’s probably not the strangest thing Diego had ever seen.


	5. Chapter 5

Theara wakes up to a pounding headache and a familiar smooth stone ceiling.

Back before they’d fled from the Academy, the infirmary was a common place for Theara to be found.

Training was one reason: Dad never held any punches, never let up on the cigarettes or, in a few occasions, the torches.

Mom had long since resigned herself to patching Theara up from those sessions, pinched brows and tight mouth a common occurrence when they were involved.

Another, little less common but likely all the less, reason, was because they hadn’t been eating.

Thirteen years old and terrified, Theara had been starved half to death in Dad’s latest attempt to get them to draw chemical energy from another living subject (person, but Dad never called Vanya that, just called her another subject).

It hadn’t worked, and the only lasting effect it had had on them was to make it impossible for them to stomach food at times (all the time).

So Dad had ordered Theara to the infirmary and had Mom hook them up to an IV that fed them vitamins and supplements in place of the food they could no longer eat.

Today, though, is for neither of those reasons.

Even if when Theara sits up, they have to lay back down because it feels like a million little people are hammering at their skull with, well, hammers.

Even if Theara feels the familiar tug of an IV in the crook of their elbow.

Even if Theara feels that same aching emptiness that comes with not eating anything but having all the vitamins and nutrients pumped into them anyways.

No, this time is different, because all Theara can remember is being shot at and then their vision going the pinkish purple of kinetic energy.

Shifting over to the right makes them lurch violently, damn near falling off the bed, but a calloused hand shoots out and hauls them back up.

Theara’s breaths are coming out fast and panicked, because what if the last thirteen years had been a lie and they were back in the Academy, they never got out, because who else could be with them but Dad, because Dad never let anyone but Mom and Pogo down into the infirmary when Theara was there—

“Ara!” Diego yells, directly in their ear.

Theara’s head snaps to the side, and they groan in pain barely a moment later, shoulders curling in on themself and hands coming up to cover their ears.

“Ara,” Diego says, gentler. “Hey, calm down.”

Theara’s eyes, squeezed tightly shut, cannot see him, but the grip around their left wrist grounds them and brings them back and reminds them that this is _real_.

“Diego,” Theara murmurs, tone nearly a sob of relief. “Diego, Diego, Diego.”

“Yeah, that’s my name, don’t wear it out,” the other quips. The worry in his tone is easy to pick out, though, and Theara’s arms wind around Diego’s neck and pull him down into a hug almost without their direction.

“Hey, chill,” Diego grumbles, begrudgingly patting Theara’s back. “Everything’s fine.”

“That’s bullshit, but sure,” they mutter into his shoulder.

Diego’s energy signature has always been just shy of raging, but now the electrical energy in his brain is slow, a giveaway to his sadness.

“Speaking of bullshit, what’s up with the powers?” Diego asks.

“What’s bullshit about them?”

“Maybe the way you said that you’d never use them again?”

Theara’s arms slowly unwind from Diego’s neck, and they ease themself back onto the pillows they been propped up on.

“But that wasn’t me,” they protest, thinking of the pinkish purple that clouded their vision.

They don’t know how long ago that was. It could be weeks or days, but maybe not years, since Diego looks the same as ever.

“I thought you didn’t use your powers anymore,” Diego says.

He sounds accusatory, but Theara really can’t think of any reason that he could be.

Ditching the powers were their choice, not his.

His energy signature is speeding up, beginning to boil.

“I don’t,” they say, instead of asking him.

“Yeah, and bullets just spontaneously lose all their kinetic energy at once?”

Diego’s eyes are filled with something that Theara can’t quite identify.

They lick their lips, thinking, thinking, thinking.

“I dunno,” they say quietly.

Their right eye squints and stays that way.

“What do you mean by that?”

“I mean…”

Theara bites their lip.

Their eye twitches.

They think a little more.

“I’ve been a little fucked up, lately,” they settle on.

“Elaborate on “fucked up,”” Diego says, leaning back in his chair with his arms crossed.

Theara pauses.

Thinks again.

Ponders, dwells, considers, whatever you want to call it.

The phrase “fucked up” in this situation, was weighty.

The explanation? Even more so.

Theara doesn’t know how to handle this.

“Ara,” Diego says, firm but not snappish.

His expression has shifted from that strange something into more of a concerned look.

“I’m not lying,” they say quietly, in a small voice. “About using my powers, I mean. Active use of my powers—it’s been thirteen years, I swear. But whatever happened back…”

They trial off, looking at Diego questioningly.

“Barely four hours ago,” he supplies.

“Four hours ago,” Theara repeats. “Right, yeah. Four hours ago, what happened, that wasn’t what I want to consider… active use.”

They glance at Diego warily, ready for him to interrupt, but he remains silent.

Theara forges on.

“Lately, in the past nine to ten months, my powers have been acting up whenever I feel angry or scared or happy. I don’t know what it is, but I know that I’m not using it intentionally.”

A bitter smile twists Theara’s lips into something dark and haunted.

“Sixteen years of rigorous conditioning aren’t going to be chipped away that easily.”

They sigh, shoulders slumping in defeat.

“But lately… like I said, I dunno. There’s just something weird going on, and I guess being shot at again for the first time in thirteen years just exacerbated it.”

Diego lets out a long, low breath.

“Do you know what’s happening?”

A hysterical laugh bubbles up in Theara’s throat, and they let a few manic giggles escape before they rein themself in.

“I just said that I don’t fucking know,” they snap.

They’re not trying to, it’s just everything been going to shit lately.

Diego sighs.

“Well, shit.”

 

Luther, Theara finds out, is half ape.

It should be more of a surprise, but really his head looked very odd on his wide shoulders so they’d come to the subconscious decision that whatever had happened to him was weird a while ago.

Five is still missing, but according to Allison they were after him.

Nobody knows where Five is, and Theara has given up on trying to hide how much anxiety that gives them because there really is no fooling anyone.

Klaus is missing as well, but that’s a regular occurrence.

Theara makes a mental note to call the apartment when they find their phone, because that’s usually where Klaus goes.

If he’s not there, then Theara’s going to hunt him down and drag him back, because two people with guns nearly killed them a handful of hours ago.

Diego has chased Vanya off, and Theara is torn between asking Allison to check up on her and checking up on her themself.

(They never deleted her number.)

Overall: nobody is dead. That’s good.

 

Diego eventually leaves, and Pogo eventually comes down to clear Theara for activity.

Theara frowns, because besides maybe Klaus, they’re probably the most familiar with the infirmary, and being familiar with the infirmary means that every time you come down you’re always released by Mom.

But Pogo is not Mom, so Theara forces words through their dry throat and asks, “Where is she?”

There is no clarification needed.

Pogo’s face falls, and a sickening feeling floods their gut as a cold fist clenched their heart.

Diego hadn’t shown any signs of anything bad.

Diego would have been in pieces.

Mom isn’t gone, right?

The broken shell seated in front of a wall of paintings says otherwise.

Theara chokes on a sob and asks Pogo with strangled, shaking words, where they put their phone.

 

_Click._

“Hey, T, you never showed up for drinks, so I’m going to assume something happened? It’s fine, just next time maybe warn a guy. Call me back when you get this.”

_Click._

“Okay, so I just realized that this is probably one of the only times you’ve never picked up your phone, and that’s including when you were in the middle of that mission in the Archipelagos climbing a mountain, so I’m going to try and call Diego.”

_Click._

“Jesus, T, you’re really worrying me. Diego isn’t picking up and I even did some digging and got Vanya’s number, she’s not picking up.”

_Click._

“Vanya just called back and what the actual fuck is it with your family? I thought you guys were done with this shit. I know you’re unconscious right now, but just call me the fuck back after you get this. We don’t even need to go for drinks, just fucking call me as soon as you wake up.”

_Click._

Theara sighs, squeezing their eyes closed.

Their fingers move of their own accord, dialing a familiar number just like yesterday.

_Click._

“T! What the hell? I thought you were fucking dead! Do you know how much digging I had to do before I found Vanya’s number? A _lot._ So many favours were called in, and when I finally got it I find out you’re unconscious because you went full psycho and did that weird possession thing! Fuck!”

“I’m fine,” Theara says right off the bat. “Um. Luther is half ape. Everyone else is fine. I—do you know where Van is? Diego said he chased her off.”

“I thought you hated her?” Braylin asks, a bit of uncertainty to his voice.

“I did,” Theara corrects, even if they’re not entirely sure themself. “I still care, though. How did she sound?”

“Uh. Tired. A little scared, maybe strained. But she didn’t sound like she was in immediate danger.”

Theara’s shoulder slump in relief.

“M’kay. Look, I’ll call you again later and we can go out for drinks with Allison tonight if no one starts shooting at me.”

“Hey, you know you don’t have to, right?”

“But I want to. Bye.”

“See ya, T.”

_Click._

A few seconds, in which Theara dials the apartment.

_Ring._

Theara’s fingers tap on the smooth back of their phone’s case.

_Ring._

Theara breathes and tries to keep the thought of Klaus never answering before the fourth ring.

_Ring._

Theara’s free hand clenches and unclenches.

_Ring._

Theara’s palms are sweaty now.

_Ring._

Theara begins to convince themself that Klaus is just being a dick.

_Ring._

Theara cannot convince themself that Klaus is just being a dick, because when they were twenty-four this is the very same thing that happened.

_Ring._

The last time this happened, Klaus was in the bathroom, wrists slit and pills and alcohol coursing through his system.

_Ring._

Ben should’ve called Klaus to answer the phone by now.

_Ring. Click._

“Hey, this is Theara Sanchez. I’m not home. Call again sometime soon or not at all, either way is fine.”

_Click._

“After the tone—”

Theara hangs up and tries to keep calm.

 

Even if Dad is dead, taking his cars still feels like stealing.

Theara couldn’t give less of a shit how many traffic laws they’re breaking, they’re just thinking about four and a half years ago and how they never want to see the inside of a public hospital ever again.

They make it up the stairs of the apartment in record time, fumbling with their keys when they arrive at their door.

Tumbling into the apartment, the first place Theara checks is the bathroom.

Nothing.

Theara could cry out in relief.

But that raises more questions, such as where the fuck Klaus could be.

 

_Click._

“Diego, I need you to call Patch.”

“What the hell, Ara?”

“Just… call her, okay? Please?”

Theara is pacing, one dark-skinned hand tugging on their cornrows.

Their brow is furrowed, and the lighting of the apartment casts a shadow over their face.

“Why do you need me to do this?” Diego groans.

“Klaus is missing.”

“He’s always missing, isn’t he?”

“But he’s not picking up his phone and I just checked all his usual haunts. He’s not fucking there.”

Theara’s voice is rising with their agitation, and they’ve stopped in the middle of the kitchen now.

Behind the phone, their fingers glow a blueish red, the air around them gradually lowering in temperature as Theara heats up.

“Ara, I hate to say this, but you’re the one who’s been living with him for seven years. You should know that he disappears a lot and reappears shitfac3d but otherwise totally fine. You need to calm down.”

“Yeah, but in all seven years I’ve lived with him, nobody’s shot up our childhood prison!”

“Ara, they’re after Five, not Klaus. He’ll be fine.”

“But they couldn’t find him at the Academy, so they might do their damn research and find one of us to weasel Five’s location out of.”

“Ara. Nobody sane would pick Klaus to interrogate.”

“Diego, I’m not fucking kidding, I’m worried! I don’t have her number, I need you to call her.”

“Okay, okay, here’s what we’re going to do. You’re worried, I get it, but I won’t call Do—Patch. I _will_ look into it. I promise I’ll find him by morning, okay?”

“Fucking—okay. Fine. Fuck, just find him, please.”

Theara hangs up and just barely resists chucking their phone at the wall.

Their nerves are fucking fried, they really need something to do that will take their mind off everything, but at the same time there’s this lingering feeling of unease about those people from last night.

All in all, not the best makings of a morning.

 

Theara slinks back into the Academy torn between packing their shit up and bolting or staying.

Staying would entail dealing with Allison and Luther for as long as they stayed, but would also mean some degree of safety.

Leaving would mean not dealing with Allison and Luther as well as the ever-present shitfest, but Theara chose their apartment for three reasons.

  1. Just shady enough so that no one will ask questions about them
  2. Relatively isolated, because energy signatures are loud as all hell
  3. And finally, if there were strange noises coming from their apartment, nobody would bat an eye



Basically, if anyone decided to come and kidnap Theara, no one in the building would give a flying rat’s ass.

Before Theara can get further than the entryway, Allison ambushes them from the living room.

“Hey, Thea, have you seen Vanya?”

Her voice is worried and shaky, speaking of a long, sleepless night.

Her energy signature reflects her tired worry, but the giveaway is the sweater with too-long sleeves that Theara knows she only wears when she’s truly, truly stressed.

“No, but I know that she’s safe,” Theara replies, taking pity on their first sister.

“Oh, thank god,” Allison breathes.

Theara takes the opportunity to cross through the doorway in the entryway and sit down on the living room couch across from Allison.

With the looming worry about Vanya gone, the dark-skinned woman’s shoulders have relaxed a bit, but the corners of her mouth have turned down into a half-frown.

Leaning forwards, Allison tugs her sleeves down just enough to lace her fingers together as she braces her elbows on her thighs, and Theara gets an absurd feeling being scolded by Mom.

“Listen, Thea, I wasn’t there last night when it happened, but Diego told me—”

“I already told him,” Theara says firmly. “It’s not anything that needs to be explored further.”

“Are you—”

“Yes.”

Allison’s half-frown turns into a full one, but she shifts back to relax against the back of the couch.

Unlike when they were children, the silence that lingers is not as comfortable as it was back then.

Sure, countless phone calls had accustomed them to having full-length conversations, but this… this is in person, and after everything that’s happened so far…

Well, everything is as far from normal as if could possibly get.

“Braylin called,” Theara finally says. “We could reschedule for tonight, if you want?”

Allison’s eyes widen.

“Oh! Your nurse friend, right?”

Theara nods.

“I’ve been wanting to meet him for a while, but I’m not so sure about tonight.”

Theara nods again, this time more out of habit than actual agreement, because they can feel those seven days that Five had talked about slipping into six.

It grates on the edges of their mind, takes a hacksaw to their already-frayed nerves and makes them jittery as all hell.

“Five is still missing,” Allison continues. “Luther and Diego are around looking for him, but I think I’ll check Vanya’s apartment. Just to—just to make sure.”

Theara’s mouth opens once before closing without a sound.

The conversation with Diego echoes in their mind.

_“I promise I’ll find him by morning, okay?”_

Fucking liar.

“Uh, yeah,” they say after a few more tries. “I’ll—I’ll see you tonight, m’kay?”

“Yeah,” Allison says, smiling softly. “Definitely.”

 

Since Diego obviously didn’t see fit to look for Klaus, that leaves Theara as the only one who’s worrying.

Luther, of course, just thought of Klaus as a junkie who whored himself out for another hit, but as a whole just ignored him.

They’d already tried Diego, and while Theara’s second brother would find it in himself to care once in a while, he obviously didn’t care this time.

After Diego was Allison on the “cares about Klaus” scale, but she was worrying more about Vanya than the sibling after her.

And then there was Vanya, who Diego had chased off.

Theara has a feeling that she doesn’t feel too kindly towards any of them at the moment.

So that’s why they’re marching into the local police station in search of Eudora Patch, because fuck Diego.

Except apparently Patch, “called in and sent Beaman in to file the evidence from arson before clocking out sick.”

Which.

Out of all the inconveniences that could happen on any day.

Fucking fantastic.

It’s only now that Theara realizes how isolated they'd been.

There had been exactly three people they’d been able to contact, but all three were preoccupied.

They’d had thirteen damn years to make more connections, to make friends, but dear old Dad had had to ruin that for them.

Paranoia dogged their every step, had them keep people at arms distance and choose somewhere to live where no one would help.

Growling in frustration, Theara makes one more round in the car they’d stolen (ahem, _borrowed_ ) from the Academy, eyes darting around in search of a familiar mop of dark, curly hair or the edge of that piece-of-shit jacket Klaus insisted on keeping.

There’s nothing.

 

Detective Eudora Patch would like to consider herself a sensible woman.

It’s why she calls for backup in the most unlikely of places but also from somewhere she knows will turn up, however late to the party.

But.

There’s the “late to the party” thing to consider, because while Diego Hargreeves does own a phone, he hardly uses it unless it’s Theara calling him in for a drink.

Eudora knows this because she dated the man while they were both in the police academy and they were younger and dumber.

Part of her hates herself for retaining this information, because she and Diego—well, they aren’t friends now, not exactly, but Eudora is hesitant to out the label “acquaintances” on what they have.

That’s beside the point.

Detective Eudora Patch would like to consider herself a sensible woman, and to do so she wanted backup that was guaranteed to pick up the phone.

It’s why she picks the phone up again after ten minutes of impatient waiting, glaring at the man at the front desk as she does so.

Dialing a number from memory, because she’s seen Diego dial it from the station every time he gets caught on a crime scene, she waits patiently as the phone rings three times.

She takes the time to glance out the window. It’s dark outside now.

The receiver clicks in her ear.

“Hello?”

“It’s Detective Eudora Patch,” Eudora says, in the interest of keeping her message short and sweet.

“Dora—er, Eudora, I mean, it’s nice to hear from you. Um. I thought you called in sick.”

Eudora’s eyebrow rises before settling down again, because Theara sounds more confused than pleased to be hearing from her.

“I’m at Luna Motor Lodge waiting for Diego, but he doesn’t seem to be picking up anytime soon,” Eudora says instead of pointing it out. “This morning, he showed up on my front porch and told me that one of his brothers was missing. My partner and I were investigating an arson at MeriTech labs when I found a message on a van outside the building directing me towards this motel.”

The man at the desk looks half wary, half curious.

Eudora glares at him.

“The people who left it are saying that they have your brother,” she finishes bluntly. “I called Diego, but he’s not picking up, so I’m asking you to come in and help me find your missing brother.”

There’s a beat of silence on Theara’s end.

“Uh, slight problem,” they say. Every word is saturated with a confused sort of awkwardness. “We might—well, actually I know—have two missing brothers.”

It comes out as more of a question to Eudora’s ears, but she waits patiently because she has a sense that that’s not all Theara has to say.

“One of them, he’s been missing for almost sixteen years and I’m half sure that he can take care of himself, but the other kinda has this tendency to disappear a lot without telling any of us, but nobody is listening to me when I tell them that it’s more likely Klaus is in trouble than Five is.”

A short pause.

“Um. Five is the one who was missing for sixteen years.”

“I understand, but these people are saying that they have your brother,” Eudora says patiently. “Which one doesn’t matter, but what does is that we get them out. Which is why I’m calling you for backup, since Diego isn’t answering.”

A small squeak on the other end of the line, and Eudora’s brow furrows in confusion.

Theara clears their throat.

“Uh, you do know that it’s been a while since I’ve done the whole… Umbrella thing?”

“Yes, but I also know that Diego sparks with you on weekends.”

“Yeah, but that isn’t the same thing as going out onto the field and kicking ass.”

Theara is beginning to sound more agitated than awkward, and Eudora sucks in a heavy sigh.

Stubborn asses, every single Hargreeves.

“Look, this argument is pointless,” she says flatly. “Diego isn’t picking up, and frankly you’re the only person I can trust to come and cover my ass while I investigate this lead. It’s technically illegal, and while I know Beaman would be perfectly willing to back me up, I’m not going to drag him down with me if this all goes south. Now get your ass up and down to Luna Motor Lodge, because I. Need. Backup.”

Ten solid seconds of silence.

The clerk looks at Eudora with wide eyes.

“I’m ten minutes away.”

_Click._

Detective Eudora Patch breathes a bit easier.

 

Theara arrives with little fanfare, pulling into a parking space neatly and climbing out with a clenched jaw.

They have arrived weaponless, but Eudora grew up on tales of superpowers and an organization known as the Umbrella Academy.

Eudora remembers her father, a police officer like she is now, shaking his head sadly whenever the Academy was on the news.

“It’s child endangerment,” he would say. “But Hargreeves is a billionaire, and you can’t make charges like that stick against a man who’s got money.”

The bell over the door tinkles as Eudora steps out, hands on her hips.

“I think you know how this works,” she says, because she can feel the seconds ticking on by.

Theara nods, shoving their hands into the pockets of a worn leather jacket.

“Before we go in, you should know that there’s been some things happening with my powers,” they say, tone full of warning. “I know I came here by choice, but I need you to know that I might be a liability in a fight.”

Eudora nods and notes that in the back of her mind, but turns around all the same and leads the way towards the closest block of rooms.

 

They go through two blocks of rooms and a floor of the third when things get interesting.

Patch leads Theara around the corner, gun held low and eyes flickering left and right, on full alert despite the mundanity of the previous two buildings.

It’s strange. Feels like a mission, and it’s a bit disheartening to find out how easily they can brush the cobwebs off of how to navigate a covert operation like this.

At room 225, the sound of something knocking makes Patch pause.

Theara lights up, because that energy signature is cold and unwelcoming as hell, so that means that it’s _Klaus._

Diego was right.

They’d lived with Klaus for seven years, they would definitely know what his energy signature was.

The hallway beyond room 225 is blocked by a cart, the cleaning lady it belongs to appearing as if called.

Patch creeps over to her, gesturing for her to be quiet before pointing back towards the room.

Her police badge is on full display, so the cleaning lady reaches into her pocket and hands Patch the card key before fleeing.

Patch hands the key over to Theara, who’s standing directly in front of the door, and they accept it, holding it over the scanner.

Patch nods.

The door clicks open.

When Theara sees the hunched silhouette, they abandon all semblance of professionalism and rush forwards to clasp the sides of Klaus’ face in their hands.

Klaus’ eyes widen, and he makes a few noises, head spamming towards the bathroom.

Theara nods in acknowledgement, hands shaking as they peel away to dip down towards their waist, where a knife is concealed beneath their jacket.

Klaus whimpers, but Patch holds a finger to her mouth and shushes him quietly.

Theara makes quick work of the duct tape holding Klaus’ arms to the chair, ripping the piece over his mouth away quickly.

Something prickles at the back of Theara’s neck, and they half-turn.

The bathroom door creaks open.

Patch’s hand pushes out, making contact with Klaus and shoving him out of the chair he was bound to.

Theara follows without coercion, ducking behind one of the two beds in the room.

_Bang. Bang._

Theara cranes their neck around, sees Patch standing tall, gun held in front of her.

“Police!” she calls. “Drop the gun, or you’re going down!”

“Get him to safety,” Theara whispers to empty air, and then push themself to their feet despite the fear tying their stomach into knots.

A few tense seconds of stillness.

Theara feels the energy signature move, a hand emerging from the bathroom and dropping a gun on the floor.

“I’m coming out,” a male voice says. “Don’t shoot.”

Theara’s eyes narrow, because they remember two different sets of gunfire from the night before.

Slipping past Patch, they stick their head out into the hallway.

A shot whizzes past their head, and they jerk back into the room, slamming the door closed behind them.

Klaus has disappeared, and Theara silently thanks Ben as they tackle Patch into the gap left empty by their fourth sibling’s disappearance.

A shot rings out, and the door is forced open.

Patch fires one off, just as another is fired from the doorway.

Theara’s head jerks to the side as they glow pinkish purple, eyes lighting up with silver-white light.

Both bullets hang in midair, the person in the doorway half-frozen.

“Little bitch,” they hiss, voice giving them away as female.

Lunging to the side, they make to fire off another shot, but Patch clambers to her feet and buries a bullet directly in front of the woman.

Theara swears viciously, ducking as the man from the bathroom recovers his gun and fires off a round.

“Can you do your magic thing?” Patch asks.

Theara stands behind her, hands glowing with golden light and eyes with silver-white.

The lightbulbs overhead flicker out, the lamp in between the beds shuts off.

The room is plunged into darkness and the glow from Theara vanishes.

Their eyelids slide closed, and Patch is forced to catch them before they fall to the floor.

 

Eudora Patch is left with two options now that Theara is unconscious from whatever stunt they just pulled.

Fight or flee.

Fighting in the dark with an unconscious person as backup doesn’t seem like quite a good idea, but moving through the door would give her position away, not to mention carrying Theara all the way to the car.

A voice breaks the tense silence.

“You think they’re gone?”

It’s the man from the bathroom.

“What do you think, idiot? Obviously the girl has some sort of special powers.”

The woman.

It takes a moment for Eudora to puzzle out who the woman is referring to; she’s never heard a Theara referred to as anything other than a “they,” so it’s a bit disconcerting.

She holds her breath.

“So… we go look for them?” the man asks slowly.

Eudora’s eyes widen.

They’re directly beside the doorway. If the two leave, they’re going to see them.

“No, you stay behind and see if they come back to the room, I’ll search the motel,” the woman snaps back.

“Alright, alright.”

Footsteps.

Eudora closes her eyes, hunkers down over Theara and readies her gun.

An African-American woman strides past the gap in between the wall and the bed Eudora and Theara are sheltered behind without so much as a glance.

Her footsteps quickly grow faint down the hallway.

“Great,” the man says.

The sound of something being tossed onto a bed is audible.

“We should never have taken this job.”

Eudora takes a deep breath, steeling her nerves and praying that her miraculous stroke of luck will hold.

“Hands up!” she orders, shooting to her feet with her gun held at the ready.

The man’s eyes widen, hands flying up into the air.

“Don’t make a sound,” Eudora says quickly, moving out from behind the bed. “Hold still.”

Standing in front of the man, she brings her gun up and slams it down onto the man’s temple.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, me again. So, as you’ve noticed, I’ve added a few different POVs outside of Theara’s (usually when they’re unconscious). I’m thinking of branching out in later chapters and having more POVs of different people, even when Theara’s awake? Tell me what you think.


	6. Chapter 6

Theara wakes up for the second time in as many days to a skull-splitting headache.

It’s to a familiar ceiling, but rather than the smooth stone of the Academy infirmary, it is a strange off-white-leaning-towards-pale-green popcorn textured one.

Theara knows for a fact that every single ceiling of this apartment complex has the same strange ceiling, because while Braylin may spend half of his life at theirs, they spend just as much at his.

Braylin, being a cheapskate and also broke, had been renting the same shitbox apartment since he was seventeen and spouting bullshit about “distancing himself from his family in order to find his true self.”

Theara had had reason to be skeptical, because one member of Braylin’s huge-ass family that seemed to grow every year always seemed to be around all the time right up until he graduated college at twenty-six.

Then again, 85% of the time the family member in question was there to beg money off of him, couch surf or just mooch for food.

The other 15% of the time they really just wanted to spend time with him, but either way it was fun to be around a family that was so effortlessly… family-like, even with the couch surfing, money begging or food stealing.

Staggering down the short hallway (leading to the room that tripled as the kitchen, the dining room and the living room all at once) and cursing the existence of the sun, Theara runs their fingers along the wall and remembers.

_ They are nineteen and a half and they have just graduated high school and have an approval for enrollment in a community college that will get them a degree and they are  _ ecstatic.

_ Braylin, never one to miss out on an opportunity to drink, had dragged them to the bar that they worked at for a celebration, but only after numerous reminds to keep quiet about the reason they were really there, because a person of legal age to work at a bar does not graduate high school at nineteen and a half while they are working there. _

_ The next morning was torture, because the noon sun was bright and it was summer and Theara would actually kill to get rid of the sun. _

_ Jason, a friend of Braylin’s and always happy to flaunt his inability to get a hangover, had woken at a normal time, but Theara had chosen to forgive him for all his past sins of being a dick about hangovers, because he’d made a pot of coffee by the time they could get their feet under them to walk out into the kitchen. _

_ Energy manipulation and absorption powers will only get you so far with alcohol, especially if you’ve made a promise to yourself to never engage in active use. _

Theara walks into the kitchen to almost the same scene, nostalgia hitting them like a truck.

A pot of coffee on the counter, empty, unused mugs lined up neatly beside it.

_ A pot of coffee on the counter, four mugs filled to the brim arranged in a diamond at its side. _

Braylin, frowning slightly, seated at the end of the counter, half-drunk coffee cooling in front of him.

_ Jason, grinning, seated smack dab in the middle of the counter like dick, a fresh cup of coffee cradled between his two hands. _

Braylin’s head swivels around, happy smile curling his mouth upwards and making the faint laugh lines around the corner of his eyes wrinkle up.

“Theara!” he exclaims, much too loudly for Theara’s headache.

“Fuckface,” Theara grumbles back, slinking over to the coffee and ignoring the mug altogether as they reach for the pot.

“You know I have to clean that when you drink out of it,” Braylin points out.

Theara takes a long draw from the pot out of spite, heat scorching their tongue.

“Soooo,” Braylin forges on, unfazed and simply switching topics, “I call you multiple times at nine pm, and on the seventh try—at this point I’m freaking out, because this is the second time in as many days that you haven’t picked up the phone, and you always pick up the damn phone—this lady picks up. She tells me her name’s Detective Eudora Patch and that you’re currently unconscious but that I should really call her later because she’s busy hauling your ass away from two psychos.”

Theara winces despite themself, bringing the pot up a bit to cover the bottom of their face.

“Is she okay?” they mumble, and Braylin’s face softens because he knows the person slumped against his kitchen counter like the back of his hand.

“She said she was going to check in with Diego, see if they could find Klaus,” he says gently. “But when I met that woman, she seemed like she had everything under control, so I need you to stop worrying about Klaus and tell me everything you can from the very beginning.”

Theara frowns, still hiding behind the pot.

A lot has happened in the past few days.

“How long was I out?” they ask, mind still searching for an appropriate answer to Braylin’s question.

His face turns less soft and more concrete, settling into an expression of sympathy as his blue eyes—so dark they could be mistaken for black in the right (or depending on your definition, wrong) lighting—searching as he figures out what, exactly, Theara needs.

“All night. It’s ten in the morning now,” Braylin answers. “But, listen, I know that asking you for everything was too much. Do you think you could start at the funeral?”

Theara doesn’t hesitate before their head is shaking vigorously.

“Okay,” Braylin says easily, moving along like he always does when there’s something he can’t tackle immediately. “How about the day after that? Anything you can tell me then?”

Theara chews on their lip before taking a slow sip of the coffee.

Braylin remains patient.

“Yesterday?”

“I think…” Theara clears their throat, hands clenching around the coffee pot. “Yesterday. Day before. The people. Attackers. They came to us the first time. Shot up the Academy, and Allison said that they were looking for Five, but I think that was when Klaus was taken. We—Detective Patch and I—we found him at the motel, and he disappeared before the shooting started, but I don’t know where he is now.”

“Okay,” Braylin says quietly. He straightens up a bit, flashing Theara a quick smile. “If that’s what happened in the past two days, I don’t think I want to know what happened the day before.”

Theara waits as the other shakes his head, hand curling around the handle of his mug in order to bring it up to his mouth to take a sip of it.

“Five came back,” Theara offers casually.

Braylin chokes, mug slamming back down onto the table as he pounds his other hand against his chest.

“Fucking what?”

 

_ Ring. _

_ Ring. _

_ Ri— _

_ Click. _

“Klaus was fucking kidnapped, Ara.”

“Yeah, Diego, I know. I’m the one who told you he was in fucking trouble and searched for him with the detective you refused to call.”

“No, no, I  _ know, _ I’m  _ sorry, _ but Klaus was  _ kidnapped, _ Ara, and I can’t believe any of the rest of us didn’t notice because we were too busy looking for Five.”

“…”

“Ara?”

“I’m not going to sugarcoat this, god knows how much I actually do that to anything, but even if you think klaus is a deadbeat junkie, you should at least look for his deadbeat junkie ass when your sibling calls you with genuine concerns about him, Di.”

“Jesus, Ara, how many times will I have to say sorry?”

“Don’t say sorry, okay? I’m not the one who needs to hear it, anyways. Just… try not to piss Patch off, because she seems like a really capable woman, and if anyone’s going to find Klaus in record timing, it’s going to be you two. Together.”

“…”

“Diego, I mean it.”

“I know. I’m still sorry.”

“Just find him, please. And Five, too, I guess, but he’s spent 45 years in the future so I don’t know how much help he needs.”

“I—yeah. Yeah, alright. Um. We, uh, we actually found Five.”

“That’s fucking great. Just stay safe. Find Klaus.”

“I will. Watch out for crazy people in kid’s masks.”

“Yeah. Bye.”

_ Click. _

 

Braylin Barabesi sits at the kitchen counter, watching a Theara Hargreeves move around his kitchen, glancing at their phone every so often, like they’re waiting for something.

It is… difficult for him to wrap his head around all of this. The Apocalypse and crazy people after a lost brother.

Even after meeting Theara, with the strange quickly becoming commonplace, this is… crazy.

The idea that nothing he did will ever matter pops up in the forefront of Braylin’s mind, and he shakes his head.

Theara looks over, carton of milk in one hand and bottom lip held between their teeth.

“I’ve been… meaning to ask,” they say carefully. “I was wondering if—”

“I could do anything?”  Braylin guesses.

Theara looks away, shoulder’s curling up towards their ears. 

“I just thought that this was worth asking you for.”

Braylin’s brow furrows as he sits back in his chair.

_ A list, _ he thinks.  _ A list will help. _

From a very young age, Braylin had learned to form lists in his head, made up of information drawn from his surroundings and what he already knows.

It makes it easy for him to organize his thoughts, when he lays everything out in his head.

So. The question to ask in order to make this list is: what does Braylin know about the Apocalypse?

Well.

  1. Five had spent 45 years there. He probably knows the most about it. Something to consider if this does work out.
  2. The prosthetic eyeball Five had brought back with him has something to do with whatever (or likely whoever) caused the Apocalypse
    1. Side note: the eyeball was apparently found in Luther’s hand. That is also something to consider.
  3. It comes in four days



Braylin sighs.

The list is short, too short.

He shakes his head.

“I need more information to make even the smallest change,” he says, spreading his hands in a “what can you do” gesture. “Sorry. I just don’t know enough.”

Theara’s shoulders slump.

“I guess It was kinda too much to hope for,” they sigh, turning to where they’d set a carton of eggs out.

 

Braylin’s fork clanks against his plate as he digs into the eggs Theara had whipped up for him.

It’s strange, this. Weird, for him to go on like he didn’t just find out an Apocalypse-With-a-Capital-A is coming for everybody’s heads.

Then again, it’s Braylin sitting in front of them.

He takes things as they come, adjusting as needed in order to work around whatever shit life threw at him. He doesn’t push too much, but doesn’t quite sit back and let things unfold.

It’s comforting for Theara, to know that they have this solid, steady presence to rely on when they need someone who won’t judge.

Braylin sits back in his chair, arms folded.

“What now?” he asks.

Theara blinks.

“What do you mean, “what now?”?”

Braylin rolls his eyes.

“I  _ mean _ what do we do now to find out more things about this Apocalypse so that we can stop it,” he stresses.

Theara blinks once more.

Thinks a bit.

“Five,” they say decisively. “45 years of post-apocalyptic survival has to be drilled into his brain by now, right?”

 

_ Ring. _

Theara fumbles for their phone, buried in their pocket.

_ Ring. Click. _

“Ich werde gerade jetzt sterben,” a familiar voice informs them tiredly.

Theara stops in the middle of the sidewalk, and Braylin walks a few more steps before he realizes they’ve stopped.

“Klaus!” they exclaim frantically.

“That’s me,” Klaus says, tone uncharacteristically weary.

Theara frowns.

“Are you alright?” they demand. “Where were you? Oh my god, where  _ are _ you? I can come pick you up if you need me to—”

“Slow—slow down,” Klaus says, voice wobbling. “Too fast, Rara, just let me enjoy the sound of your voice a little longer.”

Theara pauses, because that had sounded so sad and wistful—both strange anomalies in Klaus’ case.

They can’t bring themself to be annoyed at that stupid nickname.

“Klaus,” they say softly. “Where are you?”

A heavy, heaving breath that sounds a bit wet.

“Diego—Diego gave me his phone to call you. We’re across the street from Griddy’s. I’d—I’d, uh, like to see you, if that’s okay.”

The last part comes out as a pleading question, and Theara’s heart caves.

“Yeah, Klaus, definitely. Is it alright if I bring Braylin? He’s here already.”

A choked-out laugh.

“Yeah, yeah. Tell him his most favourite person in the world says hi.”

“Will do,” Theara says. “Be right there.”

_ Click. _

 

Diego’s dark green Impala is parked across from Griddy’s, just like Klaus had said.

Klaus and Diego themselves are seated in the front, so Theara knocks on the back window.

The two men in the front seat freeze, Diego’s finger jabbing towards Klaus.

Slowly, he reaches back to unlock the doors.

Theara slides in, Braylin right behind them.

“Sorry, Ben,” they mutter.

Diego has turned forwards, staring ahead stonily, while Klaus has slumped back in his seat.

“I lost someone,” the latter says quietly.

Diego’s shoulders tense, and Theara has the feeling that whatever is happening started before they got in the car.

“I lost someone,” Klaus repeats, seemingly uncaring to how out of context this might sound to Theara and Braylin. “The only” —he pauses here, head looking back to smack against the headrest and then righting himself— “the only person I’ve ever truly loved more than myself.”

Theara feels like someone has stepped on their chest, pressing down on their lungs and stealing their air.

Klaus rummages around in his pocket, withdrawing a small baggy of blue pills.

“Cheers,” he says weakly, holding one up.

He swallows it and Theara feels like there’s a noose around their neck.

“Well, you’re luckier than most,” Diego finally says. “When you lose someone, at least you can… see them whenever you want.”

Klaus’ head has turned, looking at Diego, and his expression is blank.

Theara kinda wants to cry, but instead they reach out and place a hand on Klaus’ shoulder.

In the rearview mirror, Diego’s eyes suddenly narrow as he reaches up to adjust it.

“What is it?” Braylin asks, sitting up a bit.

Diego twists around, looking over at Griddy’s behind them.

Theara and Braylin follow suit.

“That’s our man,” Diego mutters.

Klaus slouches, looking into one of the side mirrors to catch a glimpse of a thickset man opening his car.

“Hey, I know that guy,” he mutters.

Diego, Theara and Braylin all look at him.

“How could you possibly know that—”

“He and a really angry lady tortured me,” Klaus interrupts, waving a hand in Diego’s general direction. “I barely got out with my life.”

Theara can see Diego’s jaw twitch.

“We gotta get this guy,” he says, turning back around and starting the engine.

Braylin’s hands are white-knuckled where they’re gripping the back of the driver’s seat.

“What the fuck did I just sign up for?” he asks out loud.

 

They tail the man to a motel (different from the one Theara and Patch had nearly died in), the four of them (five, if you count Ben).

Klaus has gotten a bottle of vodka out, and Theara catches Braylin looking at it longingly more than once.

Diego gets out with a firm order of “Stay in the car,” leaving with a small set of tracking devices.

Theara watches him go, slinking through the car park carefully, before turning to Klaus.

“Klaus,” they say quietly. “There is… a lot you have to tell us.”

“What do you mean?” the other asks, taking a sip of vodka directly from the bottle. “Everything’s out in the open, now. I loved and I lost, just like every other sob story on the planet.”

“I don’t think most sob stories involve falling in love with someone overnight,” Theara says flatly. There is silver-white flashing in their eyes as their hands glow blueish red, and the temperature in the car drops.

They frown, because this is not them, and their powers have begun acting up a lot more recently.

“There’s more to it,” Theara forges on, clenching their glowing fists. “Isn’t there?”

Klaus is silent for a long moment.

Diego stands from where he’d been lying on the ground off in the not-so-far distance.

“There was a briefcase, in the vents,” Klaus says softly. Theara’s eyes meet his in the rearview mirror, and they can see a tears glaze settling over Klaus’ green. “I took it. And I opened it, because I thought it was money, thought I was going to finally get the means to dig myself out of this shithole or buy more drugs, but it wasn’t, Rara, it  _ wasn’t.” _

“Klaus, what was it?”

The door opens, and Diego climbs in, slamming the door behind him.

He spares a cursory glance for the rest of the inhabitants of the car, but otherwise says nothing as he redirects his gaze towards the motel.

“Bingo,” he mutter, obviously seeing something he liked.

Braylin clears his throat.

“Not that I’m not all for punching these guys in the face, but why are we going after them?” he asks. “It’s just… they don’t seem to be connected to any of this other than going after Five.”

“That’s why we’re doing this,” Diego says, eyes still trained on the motel. “We don’t know why they’re after Five, but if we get at least one of them, we’ll be able to force the information out of them.”

Braylin blinks.

Diego’s head tilts.

“Stay in the car,” he says shortly.

Klaus’ head jerks up, and his eyes take on a frantic look.

“What are you talking about?” he demands. “This guy tortured me!”

Theara’s stomach lurches, because while Klaus had been looking pretty shitty when they and Patch had found him, they couldn’t help but conjure images of what, exactly, that torture had been like.

“I have a plan,” Diego says.

He leaves without another word, and Braylin leans up as soon as the car door is shut.

“So, uh, I dunno about you guys, but from what I’ve heard these guys are nasty?” he says, lilt of his voice suggesting the sentence is a question.

“Since when did a Hargreeves ever do what they were told?” Theara agrees, opening the door.

Klaus groans, but his hand is already finding the latch to open his own door.

 

They catch up to Diego at the top of the stairs.

Braylin trips over a sharp stone that has no business being that big on the way over and curses his luck.

Klaus is in the lead, and Braylin doesn’t miss the carefully-concealed worry that’s haunting Theara’s every step.

And Braylin gets it, because while he might not see Klaus as much as Theara, he can still tell the difference between this Klaus and the Klaus he had last seen.

Diego, on the other hand, is a completely different matter.

Braylin sees him from time to time; not enough to call their sightings rare, but enough for him to be hesitant to put the label “friendly acquaintances” on their relationship.

Here, though, Diego seems scarily focused, and Braylin has enough observation skills to know that after Klaus had mentioned his torture, Diego had gotten ten times more murderous.

It’s why he lingers back when Klaus comes up behind Diego and asks what his plan is.

Even from behind, Braylin can sense the tension coiled up in the other’s muscles.

“I told you to wait in the car,” he says, sounding like he’s gritting that single sentence out through a jaw that’s wired shut.

“Yeah,” Klaus agrees, “but you also told me that licking a nine-volt battery would give me pubes.”

He brings the bottle of whiskey up to take a swig.

Braylin sees Theara bring a hand up to stifle their giggles despite themself.

“We were eight,” Diego says, half-incredulous, half-something else.

Klaus shrugs and tries to make his way past him, but before he gets more than a few steps, Diego places a hand on his chest.

“Uh-uh, uh-uh,” he says, directing Klaus back down the steps. Braylin and Theara are forced to retreat too.

“What? Come on,” Klaus whines quietly.

“For once, I need you to listen to me, okay?” Diego orders, pushing all three of them down the stairs.

“But we can fucking help,” Theara hisses.

“No,” Diego says, shaking his head and shoving Klaus into them. “Now go back to the car. If I don’t come out in two minutes, that means I’m probably dead.”

“Don’t—fuck, Diego, don’t say that,” Theara says quietly, some of the fight in their voice fading.

Diego’s expression softens a bit.

“Just call for help if I’m not back in two minutes, okay?” he sighs.

Theara snorts. 

“Call fucking who?” they snap. “Out of eight of us, only four of us have phones. One of those four is a landline, another is usually answered by a secretary who tells you to leave a message, and the two of us make up the last ones.”

Diego’s face does something funny.

“Fair,” he mumbles. “I don’t know why I expected our long-distance communication capabilities not to be the equivalent of our in-person ones.”

Braylin snorts.

“Fine,” Diego relents. “If I’m not out in two minutes, Ara comes in and does their weird” —he waves a hand vaguely—  _ “thing _ . Does that work?”

Klaus rolls his eyes, but pushes himself upright.

“Whatever you say, captain,” he says, saluting sarcastically.

Diego nods once, turning and jogging back up a flight of the stairs.

The three of them stand and watch him.

He points towards the car.

Theara flips him the finger and grabs Braylin by the wrist.

“We’re not going back, are we?” he asks, once they’re out of Diego’s sight.

“Duh,” Klaus replies, already turning around.

In the distance, an engine revvs and tires squeal.

“Shit,” Theara breathes, releasing Braylin and breaking into a sprint.

He bolts after them, long legs quickly overtaking the other’s, but he knows that they won’t make it in time as a blue car screeches Around the corner of the motel. There’s a person hanging out the window, machine gun glinting in the noon sun.

They’re heading past the ice cream truck, near where Braylin, Theara and Klaus has crossed over to get to the motel.

Braylin stumbles to a stop and reaches.

His surroundings go quiet as they shift and warp around him, placing him inside the car with the crazy people who are  _ going to shoot Diego. _

There.

In the road, he can see it, that damn rock he tripped over on the way over.

Braylin looks at the wheel, held in meaty hands.

He gives it a little nudge to the left and draws back.

Sound bursts into existence around him like firecrackers, and  _ bang _ goes the gun.

The car drives over the stone, and the entire machine lurches.

The person hanging out of the window sways, scrambling to maintain a hold on the gun.

The car drives by and they no longer have a line of sight to take aim at Diego up in the motel.

“Oh, thank fuck,” Theara breathes, staring after the pale blue bumper as the person in the passengers seat withdraws back into the car.

They glance at Braylin.

“You have anything to do with that?”

“Just gave them a little nudge to the left, s’all,” he replies with a cheeky grin.

 

Braylin Barabesi is born on the first of October, 1989.

His birth, in a household of nine children, six fish, five cats, four reptiles consisting of a snake, an iguana, a toad and a single chameleon, three dogs and two parents would not have been that much of a novelty had his mother been pregnant only a moment before, but the fact is that she had not been pregnant moments before.

She gives birth on the couch, to which the eldest of the nine children says, “Good riddance; we needed a new one anyways.”

So was how Braylin came to be.

At the age of five, Braylin was, understandably, a bit of a brat, like all five-year-olds are.

And he was stubborn.

God knows how stubborn he was, because if he wanted that fucking cookie then he was getting that fucking cookie.

It just so happened that the dog was walking by the kitchen at the exact moment his mother set the cookies down dangerously close to the edge of the counter. And it could only be a coincidence that the fruit bowl in the middle of the counter was close to overflowing, and nothing strange could come out of Braylin’s mother picking the vacuum up to clean the living room.

But as Braylin alternates between glaring at the cookies and his mother, something rather strange happens.

His surroundings liquify, and suddenly he is taller than he has ever been.

_ Oh, _ his little five-year-old brain thinks, looking down.

His hands, he notices, are clenched around the vaccuum handle.

He doesn’t want to vaccuum.

He lets go.

As Braylin returns to his body, his mother drops the vaccuum.

The force of it makes the floor shake, and a single orange falls out of the fruit bowl.

The dog barks from the doorway, and Braylin’s mother quickly turns to shush the pet.

The orange keeps rolling, bumping against the packet of cookies on the counter.

They teeter on the edge a bit, as if unsure about whether or not they want to fall.

Braylin fixes that by giving them a little  _ push. _

They fall into his waiting hands and he’s munching happily by the time his mother turns around.

Now, all this could be written off as a coincidence, but it keeps on happening, again and again and again.

His family doesn’t know what’s going on.

And then Braylin turns ten and there are suddenly seven super powered children fighting crime on TV.

 

Diego’s tires are slashed, so Braylin picks the lock and Diego does the rest by hot wiring it.

(Klaus and Diego both raise an eyebrow at how fast Braylin manages to get the lock unlatched, but Theara has the feeling that Klaus is nearing a state where he’s too drunk to care.)

(The vodka is nearly three quarters of the way gone.)

While Braylin had most likely negated the chances of Diego being seriously wounded, a bullet had still grazed the side of his arm, so Theara takes the wheel.

There are two seats in the front, so Braylin and Klaus retreat to the back, where the first thing they do is check for ice cream.

There are popsicles, so as Theara pulls out of the motel lot, they’re passed out.

Even Diego accepts one.

 

The tracker Diego had planted on the psychos’ car leads them out into the middle of nowhere.

Theara and Klaus alike both insist on turning the music to the truck on, to which Diego reluctantly agrees.

The cheerful jingle of  _ Ride of the Valkyries _ does nothing to ease Theara’s nerves as they pull into sight of a single convenience store out in the middle of nowhere.

Their right eye tics, squinting and smoothing out three times in quick succession.

There are two cars parked on opposite sides of the road a fair distance apart, and Theara recognises the blue of the car the psychos are driving.

On the other hand, they don’t recall ever seeing the black car parked closest to them, but when Theara presses the gas and barrels towards the man and the woman standing in the middle of the road, they realise that that’s Luther and Five, standing beside each other, each looking as perplexed as the other.

However, Theara really doesn’t have the time to wonder about that, because there are gunshots and this ice cream truck was not designed to be bulletproof.

Theara ducks down and presses the gas even further into the floor, if that’s possible.

Something goes wrong, in that split second, and Theara feels it.

A lurch in their surroundings that doesn’t quite match up to what just happened.

They don’t have time to slam on the brakes before they’re crashing into the pale blue psycho car.

“Out!” Diego yells, and Theara obeys without thinking, throwing the door open and sprinting around to unlatch the back doors of the truck.

Klaus and Braylin run around to help support Diego as they all make their way as fast as they can to where Luther is tanking.

Five, Theara notes, is missing again, and that makes their stomach tie itself into knots, but there’s nothing to be done about that.

“What the hell are you doing here?” Diego grunts as they come within earshot of their first sibling.

“Just get in the car,” Luther orders, and really none of them can argue with that.

Theara vaults the hood and rips the passenger door open as well as one can while lacking super strength, tumbling into the awaiting seat with a mumbled apology to Ben if he was there already.

Luther pushes the gas pedal to the floor, and Theara sees Klaus pressing his middle finger to the back window in the rearview mirror.

“What the actual fuck,” Braylin breathes, squished between Diego and Klaus in the back. “How are any of you guys even still alive?”

“Superpowers,” Theara replies, letting their head fall back against the seat. “And luck.”

“ _ Lots _ of luck,” Diego chips in with a pained grunt.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translation for the German:  
> Ich werde gerade jetzt sterben = I’m going to die right now  
> I apologize if the translation is terrible, because I don’t speak German and used Google Translate to get that. If anyone is willing to take pity on me, could you please help fix it? Thanks.
> 
> I’m not sure if anyone was actually curious about him, but we get to see more of Braylin in this chapter. I just really wanted to write a healthy, amicable “hook ups to lovers to friends-that-evolve-into-BFFs” relationship? So that’s what I did that with Theara and Braylin. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯  
> Like Theara, I’m not sure if I made Braylin’s power completely clear, but he deals in the manipulation of probability and reality on a small scale in order to make small things happen that affect the big picture. Basically he has the capability to cause chain reactions, but in order to do so he needs enough information about the situation in order to influence it in such a way to achieve the desired effect, which is why he couldn’t do anything about the Apocalypse with the information he had.  
> Last thing: I’m not 100% sure Diego’s car is an impala, but I watch Supernatural and made an educated guess.  
> Anyways, hope you enjoyed this! I’ll be writing more Braylin into future chapters, and I’ve got an idea for an actual sequel to this lurking in the back of my mind now that I’m roughly halfway through this. Thanks for reading, and comments/feedback will always be welcome! :)


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